A Holistic Approach to Infrastructure

According to a recent paper by UNOPS in partnership with Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), infrastructure has links with all 17 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with the potential to influence the achievement of up to 92 per cent of all SDG targets. In order to understand the greater role of infrastructure in the world it is necessary to adopt a holistic understanding of infrastructure as complex systems that interact with different aspects of fragility. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed all dimensions of fragility (OECD fragility framework) across the globe. Non-functioning and unsafe infrastructure hamper business investments and prevents citizens from making the most of economic opportunities. Moreover, the paper argues that depending on the local context, poorly designed and governed infrastructure systems may act as channels of influence for conflict while the opposite can be instrumental in peacebuilding efforts.