At the 4th G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors (FMCBG) meeting in Washington DC on 12-13 October 2022, G20 FMCBGs endorsed the G20-OECD Policy Toolkit on Mobilizing Funding and Financing for Inclusive and Quality Infrastructure Investment in Regions and Cities. The document is summarized into High Level Summary: G20-OECD Policy Toolkit on Mobilizing Funding and Financing for Inclusive and Quality Infrastructure Investment in Regions and Cities. During the meeting, chair Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati noted "This policy toolkit aimed to highlight policy opportunities that can help to mobilize funding and financing for inclusive and quality infrastructure investment by subnational governments across developing, emerging, and even developing countries. A focus is placed on subnational governments as these governments often have an important role to provide basic public infrastructure, essential for inclusion, resilience, and sustainability in regions and cities. They also have a very important role to support economic development".
The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the critical role sub-national governments play and at the same time exposed subnational disparities in access to healthcare, education and broadband infrastructure, among other areas. As the world moves beyond the COVID-19 crisis and seeks to address long-term challenges, all levels of government will have a key role to play in supporting quality infrastructure investment. This requires the right enabling environment to support quality infrastructure investment in regions, cities and rural areas. It also requires local government assistance to identify and adopt new funding sources and financing instruments that support inclusive, sustainable, and quality infrastructure investment.
In support of the G20 theme for 2022 to "Recover Together, Recover Stronger", the Indonesian G20 Presidency stresses the importance of inclusive infrastructure investment in regions and cities. On 17-18 February 2021, in their second meeting under the Indonesian G20 Presidency, the Minister of Finance and the Governor of the Central Bank agreed to "develop policies to mobilize inclusive infrastructure investment to enhance social inclusion and address subnational disparities in regions and cities". As part of this agenda, the G20 and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), with support of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), developed a Policy Toolkit on mobilizing funding and financing mechanisms for inclusive and quality infrastructure investment in regions and cities. As a complement to the development of the Policy Toolkit, the OECD prepared a companion report on inclusive infrastructure investment entitled Addressing territorial disparities in future infrastructure needs in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. This Policy Toolkit reinforces work under the Italian G20 Presidency in 2021, which included the G20 High-Level Conference on Local Infrastructure Investment and a report on innovative funding and financing in regions and cities.
This Policy Toolkit is voluntary and non-binding. Rather than recommending specific policy tools, it provides a 'toolkit' of policy opportunities that may serve as a starting point for national or subnational governments seeking to support infrastructure investment in regions and cities. Whether, when, where and how to use tools should be considered based on a case-by-case basis, in line with the local context. It will highlight a wide range of funding and financing instruments to support infrastructure investment in regions and cities and outlines key enablers to support their adoption. It will facilitate knowledge exchange to support subnational governments to diversify their revenue sources and help them to unlock the use of private finance for infrastructure.
The full PDF version of the documents can be accessed here:
- High Level Summary: G20-OECD Policy Toolkit on Mobilizing Funding and Financing for Inclusive and Quality Infrastructure Investment in Regions and Cities : [Link Here]
- The G20-OECD Policy Toolkit to Mobilise Funding and Financing for Inclusive and Quality Infrastructure Investment in Regions and Cities, prepared with support from ADB: [Link Here]
- The OECD Report on Addressing Territorial Disparities in Future Infrastructure Needs in the Wake COVID-19 Crisis: [Link Here]
