OCDE (87 pages).
Following the COVID-19 shock to economies and societies many countries are including renewed infrastructure investment as a stimulus measure. Such investments present an opportunity for governments to address short-term infrastructure challenges through maintenance spending while building resilient and sustainable infrastructure for the future.
Tackling the complex challenges and opportunities related to infrastructure resilience and maintenance requires a multidimensional approach, considering a range of factors and stakeholders at the local, regional, national and global level. This approach seeks to get the best out of the asset over its life cycle, across functions and tasks and the entire infrastructure system/network. As infrastructure is inevitably affected by environmental social and governance (ESG) risks, this approach can identify the trade-offs between objectives, and therefore enable more robust policy choices.
Drawing on examples and case studies, this report aims to provide a framework for the optimisation of existing infrastructure assets and the building of new resilient infrastructure, including new strategies capable of ensuring quality and performance over the asset life-cycle.
The COVID-19 crisis has demonstrated the importance of infrastructure for supply chain resilience, logistics and delivery of essential goods and services. It has underlined the need for countries to make their infrastructure more resilient to future disasters and pandemics, ensuring the continued operations of critical networks such as utilities, transport and telecommunications. An assessment of critical infrastructure essential for the functioning of economies and societies can bolster infrastructure resilience plans, along with assessing interconnection of infrastructure systems and their contribution to resilient communities and economies.
Beyond ensuring operational resilience, economic stimulus spending, whether directed to investments in new infrastructure or to the upgrading of existing stock, should target sustainability and resilience objectives related to the Paris Agreement, the Sustainable Development Goals, and the Sendai Framework, while meeting the G20 Principles for Quality Infrastructure. Given the volume of existing infrastructure assets, maintenance should be an urgent priority for many OECD and G20 countries.
Green infrastructure development ensures that infrastructure itself does not undermine environmental sustainability goals, whilst protecting infrastructure assets and services against environmental impacts and climate change. Climate change adaptation, through for example nature-based solutions, can help countries develop infrastructure that is resilient to the risks of rising seas or climate extreme events such as storms or floods or extreme temperatures.
New technologies can help reduce maintenance costs whilst improving operational efficiency and offers alternatives to traditional infrastructure design, construction and maintenance. Technology development has been pivotal in responding to the COVID-19 crisis enabling infrastructure to become more resilient to future disasters and pandemics. It has allowed continued operations of critical networks such as utilities, transport and telecommunications despite the large-scale disruptions and rapidly changing needs caused by the crisis.