Sunak made the promise in Hiroshima, Japan over the weekend at the G7 sunmmit, redoubling the UK’s previous offering, £8bn a year up to 2025, to the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII), the collaborative G7 effort to fund infrastructure projects in developing nations.

Provided through a government investment programme, British Investment Partnerships, the financing will look “to build vital and long-neglected infrastructure in low- and middle-income countries, from bridges and roads to renewable energy grids”.

The G7 launched the global infrastructure investment initiative under the UK’s presidency in Carbis Bay in 2021, with the aim of getting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals “back on track”, according to Downing Street. These goals are a collection of seventeen interlinked objectives authored by the UN.

Sunak said: “We know the transformative power of reliable, responsible private investment. It’s the spark that is helping us to build ports in Senegal and Somaliland, hydropower projects in Rwanda and offshore wind in India.

“The UK is committed to ensuring the PGII delivers the financing the world needs to lift communities out of poverty.”

Through the partnership, the G7 aims to mobilise up to £485bn ($600bn) by 2027 in order to narrow the infrastructure investment gap in partner countries.

Funds are expected to help finance the construction of 37km of the tramway network in the Rabat-Salé-Témara agglomeration in Morocco and establish a multi-modal ferry connecting Guyana and Suriname to Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, the eastern Caribbean states and the French overseas territories.

They will further be used for £260M worth of projects relating to organising the urban public transport situation in Surabaya and provide £200M as an initial investment in a rail expansion that will become the primary public transportation infrastructure connecting the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia with key destinations through Angola.

Funds will also help with the construction of two 500MW onshore wind power plants, one costed at £228M and £195M, in Ras Ghareb, Egypt.

Money from this fund has already been used to build the £2.3bn North-South Commuter Railway in Metro Manila, the £1.8bn high speed railway between Mumbai and Ahmedabad and the £182M trans-harbour link road in Mumbai.

As part of this global infrastructure initiative, British International Investment, the development finance institution of the UK government, has announced its first investment in the Indo-Pacific. This will constitute £12M funding for the Susi Asia Energy Transition Fund that will support renewable energy, energy storage and microgrid projects across the continent.

Like what you’ve read? To receive New Civil Engineer’s daily and weekly newsletters click here.