• Aid policy
• Debt Management
• Education
• Financial sector
• Growth and Resources Policy
• • Trade
  • Infrastructure
  • • Study of Constraints on Infrastructure Investment in Africa
    • Initial Design of Construction Sector Transparency Initiative
  • Private Sector
  • Agriculture and Rural Development
  • Natural Resources Policy
• Health
• Poverty and Social Protection
• Public Financial Management
• Public Management and Accountability
• Regional Development and Local Government
• Social Development
• Statistics

Infrastructure

Infrastructure Strategies

There is renewed interest among donors and developing country governments in increasing investment in infrastructure, but in a way that best contributes to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  OPM has a range of skills applicable at either regional, national or local level that complement traditional infrastructure skills to help ensure focused and sustainable investment in infrastructure.  OPM's experience and expertise are particularly relevant in the areas of policy and strategy, while we work closely with specialists and technical experts at the more detailed sectoral level.

Our areas of expertise include:

• Economics: relationships between infrastructure and trade, growth, poverty reduction; and the place of infrastructure in poverty reduction strategies
• Social development: links between infrastructure investment and social development; measuring and monitoring the impact of infrastructure investments on poverty reduction and progress towards the MDGs
• Public financial management: strengthening government planning and budgetary processes at central and local levels; determining the balance in funding between taxation and user charges in terms of longer term fiscal implications and assessing willingness to pay
• Governance: strengthening accountability both at the central level through ensuring alignment with strong government processes and parliamentary scrutiny, and at the local level through encouraging community participation
• Private sector participation : enhancing the role of private sector participation in infrastructure, and ensuring equality of market access opportunities for the poor

Examples of recent work include:

• Report on the constraints on private sector investment in the telecoms, power, transport, and water sectors in Sub-Saharan Africa.

• Initial design of a construction sector transparency initiative (CoST) and identification of an initial group of countries to pilot the initiative.

• Paper on infrastructure issues for Asia for DFID’s Asia 2015 initiative
• Paper on the contribution of infrastructure to growth and poverty reduction in South East Asia as part of an ADB-JBIC-World Bank study
• Paper on regional and cross-border infrastructure and its role in pro poor growth and poverty reduction for the DAC Task Team on Infrastructure for Poverty Reduction
• Infrastructure constraints to growth and poverty reduction in Cambodia, focusing on rural water and sanitation and rural roads
• Implications of research on infrastructure and pro-poor growth
• Monitoring progress in the supply of drinking water and sanitation services in Pakistan using a large multi-topic household survey
• An international study on the capacity to monitor the MDGs, including infrastructure related indicators
• Part of a major study to alleviate the constraints to private sector participation in infrastructure in four Indian states
• Support and advice to the Infrastructure Investment Facilitation Centre in Bangladesh in a variety of fields and sectors

Project Examples