Asian Development Bank’s publication about SOURCE – the Multilateral Platform for Sustainable Infrastructure

The publication emphasises the role of SOURCE in assisting countries to develop and build a pipeline of infrastructure projects aligned with both the SDGs and the G20 Principles for Quality Infrastructure Investment.

This publication by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) prominently features a statement that describes SOURCE as a “global and scalable information technology platform, hosted by the United Nations, acting as a unique delivery system for the world’s best practices in infrastructure project development”. It further elaborates that SOURCE has been collaboratively designed by multiple Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) to enable a “systemic transition to the digitalisation of infrastructure project development and data collection”.

The publication presents the success story of the MDBs working as a system in the three phases of development of SOURCE:

  • Phase 1: Development of a Digital Knowledge Dissemination Tool
  • Phase 2: Evolution into a Fully Operational Tool and Start of the Integration Strategy
  • Phase 3: Scaling Up Integration toward Financial Sustainability

SOURCE’s key value propositions to countries emphasised by the publication are:

  1. Operationalising Multilateral Development Bank Knowledge Products: SOURCE is embedded with various international tools, guidance, and best practices in its templates.
  2. Enabling Sustainable Development Goal Measurement: From project definition to operation and maintenance, SOURCE allows public agencies to define clear SDG targets in the early stages and during development, that can be integrated and monitored across the project lifecycle.
  3. Providing a Global Information Technology Solution that Ongoing Infrastructure Development Initiatives Need: SOURCE is a global information technology (IT) solution that can host, deliver and disseminate existing tools.
  4. Supporting Infrastructure as an Asset Class: Through sector-specific templates and adaptive timelines, SOURCE allows the capturing and structuring of data points, from early definition to the infrastructure’s end of life. Information thus collected and curated on SOURCE via a host of sanitising and decision-making tools may be disclosed by public sponsors in a consistent and lawful manner at the relevant stages of the projects. SOURCE thereby establishes a de facto universal data standard for infrastructure projects, facilitating the private sector’s origination and due diligence processes.

 

Access the Publication Here