The economic fallout caused by the COVID-19 pandemic had created an opportunity for key role players in the infrastructure universe to stimulate the economy through infrastructure investment. This boosted the economy in the short-term, and in the long-term will provide societal benefits such as employment and spatial integration. The World Economic Forum highlights that when 1% of GDP is invested in infrastructure, economic output increases by about 0.4% in the same year and by 1.5% four years later. The SIDSSA seeks to, inter alia, create a sustainable and unique structured approach, that galvanises funders, policy makers, SOEs, and private sector to address fundamental challenges with regards to rebuilding technical and financial engineering capacity in government; development of a detailed and integrated infrastructure investment plan and project pipeline, initiative policy and regulatory reforms to accelerate infrastructure investments, rethink the public sector financing space and revise the public sector infrastructure institutional framework.

The symposium explored these and other key issues under the theme “Quality infrastructure for development, recovery and inclusive growth”