Lessons learned from UK infrastructure

Philippine infrastructure has always suffered from inadequacy, poor quality, and weak connectivity, becoming a stumbling block in unlocking the country’s full economic potential. With the country’s infrastructure woes being fully exposed by the pandemic, a rethinking of our approach to national infrastructure is sorely needed. In this pursuit, it serves us well to learn from the UK’s approach in crafting its national infrastructure strategy.

To ensure that infrastructure development will support sustainable economic growth across all regions, improve competitiveness, and improve quality of life, the UK established an executive agency called the National Infrastructure Commission (NIC) in 2015. The NIC is a body that identifies the UK’s pressing infrastructure challenges and crafts coherent, evidence-based recommendations that inform the UK government’s national infrastructure strategy. It is worth looking at how the Commission was designed to guide UK infrastructure development.

First and foremost, the NIC is mandated to study the various sectors of “economic infrastructure”—i.e., energy, transport, water, waste, flooding, and digital communications—and think about how they interact with each other. This allows the NIC to have a multisectoral, whole-of-government approach in infrastructure policymaking. This is crucial because an infrastructure project does not exist in a vacuum; one infrastructure sector necessarily affects others. For example, increased transport infrastructure development in a city may significantly affect the city’s energy and water demand, as well as the level of waste and flooding afflicting the city.

In comparison, as noted by the World Bank, there is weak policy planning and coordination among the different infrastructure sectors in the Philippines, where infrastructure development is approached with a “silo mentality.” Weak coordination among different infrastructure-related agencies necessarily leads to incoherent infrastructure projects that have damaging effects on communities.

Moreover, in determining the metrics of success of infrastructure development, the NIC adopts a holistic view of development. Infrastructure development should support an environmentally sustainable society that improves the quality of life of communities.

To illustrate, in the NIC’s recently published Baseline Assessment Report where the Commission assessed the current state of UK infrastructure and identified key infrastructure challenges for the coming decades, the performance of infrastructure sectors was measured under three strategic themes. First, infrastructure sectors were assessed on their level of carbon emissions, since the UK government has committed itself to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Second, infrastructure sectors were evaluated based on their resilience from shocks and stresses brought about by climate change, as well as their impact on the natural environment. Third, infrastructure sectors were assessed based on how they support the UK government’s “leveling up” agenda—reducing disparities in economic outcomes between different towns, cities, and regions in the UK.

In the Philippines, our concept of a “successful” infrastructure development is narrow. For instance, as pointed out by the Move As One Coalition’s study on public transportation, the success indicators for transport infrastructure such as roads and highways are heavily “car-centric”—largely measured in terms of lessening vehicular travel time, with little consideration for cost of commuting, impact on health and the environment, creating more equitable distribution of opportunities in neglected regions, and the overall quality of public transport service. Inclusivity and sustainability are largely disregarded.

Lastly, as pointed out by the World Bank, the failure to insulate Philippine infrastructure planning and implementation from political intrusion has hampered development. While it cannot be said that infrastructure development in the UK is totally isolated from the influence of politics, there exists in the NIC an impartial, independent agency that sets out infrastructure policies based on rigorous evidence-based and data-driven analysis. The Commission has put up expert advisory and young professional panels, and continually engages with various stakeholders from various sectors, including ordinary citizens, to challenge the agency’s thinking and offer alternative perspectives.

The Philippines cannot simply “build, build, build” its way to solve the country’s infrastructure challenges. In order to be truly effective in serving the needs of the Filipino people, infrastructure development must work toward achieving strategic goals, it should be forward-thinking, and must prioritize inclusivity and sustainability.

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Leo Camacho is a law professor who recently worked as a researcher and policy advisor for the UK government’s National Infrastructure Commission in London, the UK’s expert advisory body on infrastructure.