Scaling Infrastructure: New Tools for a New Strategy
This report provides lessons learned from IFC's PPP Projects following the approach of "Scaling".
In the last few years, IFC has prioritized an approach to creating bankable private sector infrastructure opportunities that we call “Scaling”—focusing not on single asset development, but on a holistic approach that creates a pipeline of infrastructure projects.
The essence of the Scaling approach is to develop a robust public-private partnership (PPP) model for a single deal and then replicate it. This spreads costs, enhances impact, and encourages programmatic, competitive tendering, with faster delivery and lower prices—genuinely creating new markets.
In some countries, this approach involved working with governments to design a process. In others, IFC has worked with investors and bankers, corralling views and facilitating dialogue. In each case, the ideas at the heart of Scaling—focusing on aggregation and investing upstream to achieve credibility downstream—were adapted to specific country circumstances. In all cases, the Scaling effort in process design and organization had a meaningful and long-lasting impact.
Here we bring together lessons from our experience with Scaling Infrastructure in five country examples—the “Seven Sisters” project in Jordan, the “Nubian Suns” project in Egypt, IFC’s Scaling Solar program, the Rewa project in India, and the RenovAr program in Argentina—together with five companion pieces that present each of these experiences in more detail.
