Infrastructure Investment and Sustainable Development Conference, New York

The Infrastructure Investment and Sustainable Development Conference, held in New York on 16 October 2017, was jointly organised by number of organisations, including Columbia University, the IMF, the UN Environment Program and the Global Infrastructure Hub.

The program for the Conference was a wide-ranging one, focusing on:

• infrastructure organization and financing;
• green bonds and other forms of green financing;
• sustainable agriculture; and
• climate-related financial disclosure rules.

Mark Moseley, the GI Hub Chief Operating Officer, was a member of the panel discussing the topic of infrastructure organization and financing. He referred to the work of the GI Hub on organizational arrangements within the Multilateral Development Banks^[1] (MDBs); the capacity-building workshops which the GI Hub is holding with MDBs (such as the recent event in Dar es Salaam^[2]); and the GI Hub’s ongoing collaboration with the European Investment Bank, the OECD and others on the Infrastructure Benchmarks Initiative, which seeks to establish a global repository of data on the performance of infrastructure as an asset class.

One of the highlights of the event was a thought-provoking presentation by Martin Wolf, the Chief Economic Commentator for the Financial Times. Mr. Wolf spoke of the challenge of achieving global decarbonization targets in the face of both strong economic growth in Asia – especially China and India – and populist sentiments in the developed world.

Another keynote presentation was the concluding address by Tao Zhang, the Deputy Managing Director of the IMF, who spoke of the universality of the decarbonization challenge and the role of the IMF in addressing the instability caused by climate change.

The GI Hub’s participation in the event is part of the Hub’s ongoing engagement with academic institutions, international organizations and other key stakeholders in regard to the development of sustainable infrastructure.