This week the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, and I announced that Australia will provide $25 million to the World Bank Group’s Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF).
The GIF will facilitate greater private sector investment in the infrastructure of emerging market and developing countries.
It aims to do this through complex public-private partnerships focused on projects with commercial viability.
The GIF will focus on both ‘upstream’ advice to create the right investment environments and ‘downstream’ assistance on financial structures.
In addition, the GIF will increase collaboration between multilateral development banks, governments and the private sector to support increased infrastructure investment by the private sector.
The strong partnership between the Australian Government and the World Bank on the GIF underscores our commitment to lift investment in global infrastructure, a critical component to ensuring economic growth and poverty alleviation.
Our partnership with the World Bank also extends to the Global Infrastructure Hub based in Sydney which will work closely with the GIF.
Both the GIF and the Hub represent strong legacies from Australia’s international leadership during our G20 Presidency in 2014, which will deliver greater growth in infrastructure for Australia and the world.