This report aims to provide policy makers with a comprehensive examination of “project pipelines”, a common concept in infrastructure planning and investment discussions. It is structured around some basic but important guiding questions, including: What is meant by project pipelines? How can we characterize them? What concrete approaches and actions can governments and other public institutions take to develop project pipelines and mobilize private finance into these projects? Answers to these questions suggest that a pipeline can only be as robust as the investment-ready and bankable projects that constitute it, as effective as institutions that deliver it, and as ambitious as the objectives to which it is linked.
Through a series of in-depth case studies, this report therefore focuses on the concrete actions needed to develop low-carbon project pipelines, including what constitutes good practice in infrastructure planning; what it means for governments to build robust project pipelines; and what is being done to strengthen them. The report highlights that while governments and public institutions are already taking actions to develop robust pipelines in a range of country settings, they nevertheless need to be strengthened significantly to meet long-term climate mitigation objectives. Good practices pioneered by the countries and actors in the case studies can provide models for governments to adapt and bolster their own efforts.