PRIF Week 2023

 

PRIF Week will be a virtual conference held each morning/afternoon over five days.

The conference will kick off at 11am Sydney Time; 12pm Fiji Time; 1pm Samoa and Tonga Time.

The Pacific region faces significant infrastructure challenges that are exacerbated by the impact of climate change and more frequent natural disasters. Like other regions, in the Pacific there can be sub-optimal infrastructure investment, which leads to poor quality builds, inefficient assets, unsustainable debt, limited local employment and economic opportunity, and compromised environmental and social benefits. These challenges need to be addressed, as the demand for investment in the Pacific is acute and growing, with the Asian Development Bank conservatively estimating the region’s annual infrastructure needs from 2016-30 at US$3 billion.

Pacific Island Countries and their development partners have a strong sense of what infrastructure needs to deliver for Pacific communities, but there has not been sufficient focus on establishing and articulating a shared understanding of and expectations for quality infrastructure in the region.

Drawing on the regionally-owned principles for quality infrastructure currently being developed by the Pacific Island Forum for consideration by Forum Leaders in November, and consistent with principles articulated through the Quality Infrastructure Investment initiative led by the G20 and informing initiatives such as the Blue Dot Network, PRIF has identified a number of key elements that address Pacific-identified priorities and represent quality in a Pacific context.

PRIF Week 2023 will provide a unique opportunity for infrastructure stakeholders to get involved in engaging conversations on the topic of quality infrastructure. Join PRIF Week 2023 to deep dive, interact and share views in open dialogue with other practitioners in the infrastructure sector.

What is quality infrastructure?

Quality infrastructure investment aims to maximize the positive economic, environmental, social, and development impact of infrastructure while ensuring financial sustainability. It involves investment that:

•  Promotes sustainable and inclusive economic development
•  Supports local content and creates local jobs
•  Builds and maintains climate and disaster resilience
•  Provides value for money, including consideration of full life cycle costs
•  Reflects sound public financial management and responsible public borrowing 
•  Encourages private sector investment
•  Adopts environmental and social safeguards 
•  Promotes gender and social inclusion

Key conference topics:

•  Climate and disaster resilience infrastructure
•  National infrastructure planning for sustainable and inclusive economic growth
•  The importance of considering life-cycle costs
•  A shared approach to environmental and social safeguards
•  Value for money procurement and better project implementation
•  Local content and private sector participation
•  Gender and social inclusion in infrastructure provision