World Bank, investors reveal infrastructure finance plan

The World Bank is teaming up with a group of private investors on a new financing vehicle to support the development of infrastructure in the emerging economies. Announcing the new Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF) on October 9 at the bank’s annual meeting in Washington, DC, World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said that the facility will provide support to public-private infrastructure projects that no individual institution would be able to finance on its own. Kim stressed that private investment in infrastructure in the developing nations decreased to $150 billion in 2013 compared with $186 billion in 2012, falling well short of the estimated additional $1 trillion in need through 2020. Kim did not specify how large the new GIF would be, saying only that it will be “very ambitious.” The facility will launch later this year in the form of a pilot phase that would look at four or five mid-size infrastructure projects and four or five large projects. These are likely to include “climate friendly” projects in efficient electricity generation and transmission, mass transit, and water infrastructure that builds in resiliency, bank officials have indicated.