Novembre 2025
CNUCED, Conférence des Nations unies sur le commerce et le développement (74 pages).
International investment in sustainable infrastructure – including both hard infrastructure sectors like transport and energy, and soft infrastructure sectors such as health, education, water, and sanitation – remains insufficient in both volume and distribution. Sectoral and geographical diversity is lacking, with the poorest and smallest countries often bypassed despite their urgent financing needs.
Public private partnerships (PPPs) offer significant potential to help close the sustainable development goals (SDG) financing gap. Among PPPs, international PPPs – those involving international investors as project sponsors, and the focus of this report – are relatively significant contributors to investment in developing economies. Their impact is particularly notable in the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), where they account for roughly one-third of all PPP projects, compared with less than 20 per cent in other developing economies.
Nevertheless, international investment in PPPs in developing countries remains insufficient. Two major imbalances shape international PPP activity: sectoral and geographical. From a sectoral perspective, since 2015, renewable energy has been dominant, accounting for over 70 per cent of projects. While this reflects strong momentum in sustainable infrastructure it also highlights limited diversification into other critical sectors such as transport, and social infrastructure. Geographically, activity remains highly concentrated, with ten developing countries, led by Brazil, India, Chile, Viet Nam and the Philippines, accounting for nearly 60 per cent of all international PPP projects. In contrast, many smaller or lower income economies remain largely excluded from international PPP flows.
Structural constraints, such as high perceived risks and limited institutional capacity, continue to hinder progress. Unlocking the full potential of PPPs requires long-term government planning, strengthened regulatory frameworks, and robust institutional frameworks and dedicated PPP units with sufficient authority to manage complex projects. In addition, it requires improved project bankability. Risk mitigation instruments, often provided by multilateral development banks (MDBs), can support this and help build investor confidence.
The findings of this report highlight four critical dimensions that must be addressed to advance international investment in sustainable infrastructure: robust legal frameworks, integrated planning and contract design, innovative financing mechanisms, and strengthened implementation and management capacity.
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