Policy Brief: Infrastructure to 2030

Infrastructure systems – transport, electricity, telecommunications, water, etc. – play a vital role in economic and social development. Increasingly interdependent, they are a means towards ensuring the delivery of goods and services that promote economic prosperity and growth, and contribute to quality of life.

Demand for infrastructure is set to continue to expand significantly in the decades ahead, driven by major factors of change such as global economic growth, technological progress, climate change, urbanisation and growing congestion. However, challenges abound: many parts of infrastructure systems in OECD countries are ageing rapidly, public finances are becoming increasingly tight, and infrastructure financing is becoming much more complex.

As a result, a gap is opening up in OECD countries between the infrastructure investments required for the future, and the capacity of the public sector to meet those requirements from traditional sources. Bridging the looming “infrastructure gap” will demand innovative approaches, both to finding additional finance and to using infrastructures more efficiently and more intelligently through new technologies, demand management strategies, regulatory changes and improved planning.

Where will new sources of finance come from and what role will the private sector play? How can infrastructures be managed more effectively and more efficiently? Will the business models currently in place for financing, organising, regulating and delivering infrastructures and infrastructure services be able to respond adequately to the complex challenges they face, and will they be sustainable over the longer term?

This Policy Brief looks at the forces shaping investment needs in infrastructure over the next 25 years. Drawing on examples and experience from across OECD countries, it offers a set of policy proposals for governments to explore in their efforts to bridge the infrastructure gap and enhance infrastructure’s contribution to economic and social development in the years to come.