01/06/2017
Investing in social infrastructure: European lessons, global opportunities

Eugene Zhuchenko, Executive Director, LTIIA, wrote an article on investing in social infrastructure in the June 2017 edition of Institutional Investing in Infrastructure.

Social infrastructure today is probably the smallest infrastructure sector as measured by the value of private financing. The sector is fundamentally interesting for institutional investors in infrastructure that are increasingly looking for “safe harbour” assets to balance their portfolios and also for governments that are often struggling to mobilize public financing for new infrastructure developments.

Public and private sides need to have a much deeper dialogue about enabling the flow of institutional capital to social infrastructure development, compared to what we are seeing today. One effort at building such dialogue originates in Europe, where High Level Task Force on Social Infrastructure was formed in the beginning of this year. HLTF believes that the policy action should enable a wider participation of development banks in financing the build-up of social infrastructure together with private investors, effectively creating more scope for credit enhancement solutions where concession terms alone are not ‘meeting the market’. Similar actions can help develop the social infrastructure marketplace in many other places.

Read the full article here and access the June edition of Institutional Investing in Infrastructure by visiting the publication’s page.