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The Infrastructure for Development Conference series (#Infra4Dev) is an initiative of the World Bank’s Infrastructure Vice-Presidency, aiming to promote dialogue and exchange between leading edge economic researchers and the wider community of policymakers and practitioners on leveraging infrastructure for development. The Infrastructure Vice-Presidency focuses its work on digital infrastructure, transport networks and energy systems, as well as financing and guarantees.
The World Bank and University Mohammed VI Polytechnic (UM6P) partnered for the fourth annual #Infra4Dev Conference, held on the 9th and 10th May 2024 in Rabat, Morocco.
In a context of pressing development challenges, including climate change, multiple conflicts, and a disappointing progress towards the sustainable development goals, policy makers around the world are grappling with the need for more resources to steer the global economy on to a more sustainable long-term development path. This is felt very acutely in infrastructure sectors, including digital infrastructure, transport networks and energy systems. Mobilizing resources to deliver infrastructure investments involves solving two related issues. First, how they are financed, with a range of instruments covering budgetary expenditures, bond markets, bank loans, equity issuance, guarantees, etc., and involving both public and private players. Second, who eventually repays the cost of delivering the services, i.e., the funding, which involves combining users’ fees and taxpayers’ money.
The program hosted in the campus of UM6P included a mix of presentations fo research papers selected from the submissions, as well as invited sessions and policy panels where academic findings and policy challenges and lessons will be confronted.
Keynote speakers included Ufuk Akcigit (University of Chicago) and Peter Blair Henry (Stanford University, Hoover Institution, and Freeman Spogli Institute).