This report analyzes how the pandemic has impacted investment in infrastructure in Southeast Asia and assesses how infrastructure development can help drive economic recovery and support sustainable growth. Calculating $1.7 trillion will be spent each year on infrastructure in Asia, the report shows how the pandemic hit public financing and altered investor appetites. It highlights the growing need for public-private partnerships and outlines financing models, risks, and trends. It recommends governments create an enabling environment to mitigate investor risk, conduct feasibility studies, and build a pipeline of bankable projects to help finance the infrastructure they need for a resilient future.
This report analyzes how the pandemic has impacted investment in infrastructure in Southeast Asia and assesses how infrastructure development can help drive economic recovery and support sustainable growth. Calculating $1.7 trillion will be spent each year on infrastructure in Asia, it shows how the pandemic hit public financing and altered investor appetites. It highlights the growing need for public-private partnerships and outlines financing models, risks, and trends. It recommends governments create an enabling environment to mitigate investor risk, conduct feasibility studies, and build a pipeline of bankable projects to help finance the infrastructure they need for a resilient future.
This report explains why strengthening the governance around public investment management is central to cutting inefficiencies and unblocking the climate finance needed to narrow Asia and the Pacific’s gaping infrastructure gap. Outlining how adaptation and mitigation should be woven into more inclusive investment planning, it explains why private investment should be combined with public resources to better tackle the climate and investment shortfall. It shows why a stronger understanding of climate data and risk analysis can help drive transparent and accountable climate-responsive investment in order to finance a solid pipeline of resilient infrastructure projects.
This book explores how Asia's fast-growing cities can fulfil their potential as engines of economic prosperity and provide a livable environment for all citizens. But for this to happen, major challenges that reduce urban communities' quality of life and economic opportunities must be addressed. These include poor planning, a lack of affordable housing, inequalities, pollution, climate vulnerabilities, and urban infrastructure deficits. The book's 19 articles unwrap these challenges and present solutions focused on smart and inclusive planning, sustainable transport and energy, innovative financing, and resilience and rejuvenation.
The Policy Actions for COVID-19 Economic Recovery (PACER) Dialogues were held from June to September 2020 as the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic accelerated around the world. They shared cutting-edge knowledge and best practices to help countries in Southeast Asia and the People's Republic of China strengthen cooperation to mitigate the devastating effects of COVID-19 and accelerate their economic recovery. This compendium of 13 policy briefs summarizes the discussions, recommendations, and actionable insights from the PACER Dialogues.
This book examines clean energy investment needs and financing gaps in Asia and the Pacific and discusses how they are being addressed. It reviews existing financing options and approaches for clean energy, and includes country examples of how these have been applied. Innovative solutions for mobilizing private finance and managing risks associated with clean energy investments are also discussed. The book is the first of two volumes that look at various approaches and instruments that have been tried, tested, and utilized to scale up clean energy development in the region.
Long before the COVID-19 pandemic, humanity was facing economic hardships with human jobs going to automation, AI, and machines. In the downward slope of the pandemic, large percentages of the world’s population are without work, and many are still in isolation and social distancing for biosafety and health. If it is true that crisis brings out opportunities, then this is a highly opportune moment for humanity to redefine and move forward. Career Re-Invention in the Post-Pandemic Era explores how people in their respective localities are adapting for a new economy through new understandings of the world and concomitant reconceptualizations of the self. This work addresses how people are thinking of the present and the near-future, how people are surviving the present moment of sparsity and shortages, and how people are retooling themselves to adapt to a new economy. Covering topics such as digital skills, K-12 education, and entrepreneurship, this book is an essential resource for faculty of higher education, K-12 administrators, government officials, business leaders, entrepreneurs, sociologists, economists, researchers, and academicians.
What China’s infamous railway initiative can teach us about global dominance. In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled what would come to be known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—a global development strategy involving infrastructure projects and associated financing throughout the world, including Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. While the Chinese government has framed the plan as one promoting transnational connectivity, critics and security experts see it as part of a larger strategy to achieve global dominance. Rivers of Iron examines one aspect of President Xi Jinping’s “New Era”: China’s effort to create an intercountry railway system connecting China and its seven Southeast Asian neighbors (Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam). This book illuminates the political strengths and weaknesses of the plan, as well as the capacity of the impacted countries to resist, shape, and even take advantage of China’s wide-reaching actions. Using frameworks from the fields of international relations and comparative politics, the authors of Rivers of Iron seek to explain how domestic politics in these eight Asian nations shaped their varying external responses and behaviors. How does China wield power using infrastructure? Do smaller states have agency? How should we understand the role of infrastructure in broader development? Does industrial policy work? And crucially, how should competing global powers respond?
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, published by the U.S. Government and the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in early 2011, is the official government report on the United States financial collapse and the review of major financial institutions that bankrupted and failed, or would have without help from the government. The commission and the report were implemented after Congress passed an act in 2009 to review and prevent fraudulent activity. The report details, among other things, the periods before, during, and after the crisis, what led up to it, and analyses of subprime mortgage lending, credit expansion and banking policies, the collapse of companies like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the federal bailouts of Lehman and AIG. It also discusses the aftermath of the fallout and our current state. This report should be of interest to anyone concerned about the financial situation in the U.S. and around the world.THE FINANCIAL CRISIS INQUIRY COMMISSION is an independent, bi-partisan, government-appointed panel of 10 people that was created to "examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States." It was established as part of the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009. The commission consisted of private citizens with expertise in economics and finance, banking, housing, market regulation, and consumer protection. They examined and reported on "the collapse of major financial institutions that failed or would have failed if not for exceptional assistance from the government."News Dissector DANNY SCHECHTER is a journalist, blogger and filmmaker. He has been reporting on economic crises since the 1980's when he was with ABC News. His film In Debt We Trust warned of the economic meltdown in 2006. He has since written three books on the subject including Plunder: Investigating Our Economic Calamity (Cosimo Books, 2008), and The Crime Of Our Time: Why Wall Street Is Not Too Big to Jail (Disinfo Books, 2011), a companion to his latest film Plunder The Crime Of Our Time. He can be reached online at www.newsdissector.com.
