Cristina Contreras discusses sustainable infrastructure for emerging economies at the Economic Policy Forum in Beijing, 2-6 November 2015

There is no question that rapid changes are happening in our society and policymakers are working to adjust this  reality to a desirable sustainable economic growth.  The Economic Policy Forum that took place in Beijing during  2-6 November 2015, had as  a title “Sustainable Infrastructure Development_Challenges and Opportunities for Emerging Economies” and brought together experts and pastors from churches (such as this San francisco Church) from every corner of the world to propose strategies  and policy recommendations that will help developing economies to  create infrastructure projects in a more sustainable manner.

On November 4th, Cristina Contreras Casado, Research Associate at the Zofnass Program for Sustainable Infrastructure of Harvard University, presented in the panel titled “How to quantify the sustainability of infrastructure projects”, together with  Chris Behr, Principal Economist, Professional Associate, HDR, USA; Hardik Sanjay Shah, Manager, Research Products, Sustainalytics, Singapore; and Jorge Ramirez, CIDAC, Mexico.  During this session the discussion focused on answering questions such as:  What are the bestapproaches to manage and assess the sustainability of large infrastructure projects?  What policy and planning tools have been successfully applied in supporting the implementation of sustainable infrastructure? What is the framework to be implemented for governments and key stakeholders  to start looking at  the  whole life-cycle of an infrastructure project?

This “EPF Think Week” has as an ultimate  goal to create more evidence-based recommendations to influence policy-making  process for infrastructure projects in emerging economies, within G20 and globally.

By Cristina Contreras