Asia needs an estimated $1.7 trillion a year in infrastructure investment through 2030, but no single bank can cover that. Instead, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank has built its strategy around a narrower question: how does public money pull in more money behind it? Working with governments, development banks and private investors, AIIB’s focus is increasingly to turn infrastructure plans into projects that can actually attract capital.
That question sits at the heart of AIIB’s 11th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors, running in Doha, Qatar, on 28 and 29 September, under the theme “Tomorrow’s Infrastructure: Impact and Innovation.” It marks the start of the bank’s second decade. Vice President and Corporate Secretary Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles sees the timing as a chance to sharpen what the bank’s financing is actually for.
An Opportunity to Scale Impact
“It’s a very important meeting because it’s the first in our second decade,” Cowper-Coles said in an interview at AIIB headquarters. “It’s the first under the leadership of our new president, President Zou Jiayi. And it signals that we are concerned about maximising the impact of the money we raise, not only on our own account, but with our partners.”
AIIB now has 111 approved members from six continents. Demand keeps rising with them. It also keeps changing shape. Renewable energy, clean water and resilient infrastructure remain the priorities, but Cowper-Coles pointed to health and digital infrastructure as growing fast alongside them. “We’re looking beyond traditional infrastructure, not just ports and airports, roads and bridges, but also health infrastructure, digital infrastructure,” he said. Infrastructure, in his description, has become “the operating system of a modern economy and a modern society.”
Preparing projects for private capital
No single institution can finance demand at this scale, so AIIB has put more weight on what happens before a project ever reaches the market. That means working with clients early: preparing projects, structuring the risk, making them attractive enough that other investors follow. Sometimes it means AIIB taking on risk a private lender won’t touch, or offering a guarantee that unlocks financing well beyond its own contribution.
“We are looking more and more at the way in which we can make projects bankable, prepare them for the market,” Cowper-Coles said. “We can take on the risk, the guarantees that the private sector can’t, and then draw in money from elsewhere.”
A $200 million guarantee to Türk Eximbank shows how that plays out in practice, Cowper-Coles said. The deal covered 70% of the value of the bank’s first green loan and brought in close to $300 million of financing from international banks. Local-currency financing and loan syndication are two more levers Cowper-Coles wants to pull harder as AIIB tries to grow the pool of capital it can deploy.
Climate at the centre
Climate financing already accounts for most of AIIB’s lending. In 2025, 71% of the bank’s financing was climate-related or green, a share the Bank is committed to hold above 50% for years to come. “It’s absolutely central to what our members are asking for,” he said. “It’s also central to what we do.”
The projects behind that figure look very different from one another. A $50 million water supply and sanitation project in Kyrgyzstan is bringing clean water to more than 100 towns and villages, reaching around 450,000 people. In Bangladesh, a $400 million programme with the Asian Development Bank is building climate resilience directly into how the government plans and budgets. And in Chile, Cowper-Coles pointed to a desalination plant and aqueduct the bank has financed, supplying clean water to “a region that has suffered from low rainfall for the past 10 years.”
Infrastructure that connects
Some of AIIB’s projects cross borders entirely. In Lao PDR, the bank is backing the Monsoon 600 MW wind project, which will let the country export electricity to Vietnam. Around a quarter of AIIB’s financing currently supports cross-border connectivity, a share the bank wants to raise to 25–30% by 2030, Cowper-Coles said.
Closer to home for millions of people, AIIB’s urban upgrading programme in Indonesia has reached an area where some 8.5 million people live. “We’ve delivered clean water, paved streets, safe areas for children to play, and we’re very, very proud of it,” Cowper-Coles said. “It’s made a huge difference to a huge number of people.” He pointed to other examples in the same breath: the Izmir Metro expansion in Türkiye, and a nationwide fibre network being rolled out across Oman, in both cases in partnership with others. Further afield, AIIB has backed the Zhanatas wind farm in Kazakhstan and solar power projects in Egypt, Oman and the Maldives.
A decade focused on delivery
AIIB is entering its second decade with a broader ambition. Guided by a focus on impact, innovation and integrity, the Bank aims to stretch its balance sheet further, and mobilise additional capital for sustainable infrastructure. For Cowper-Coles, the ultimate test is not the scale of commitments, but whether investments deliver tangible results for people and communities. “This isn’t just about commitments and promises,” he said. “It’s about actually financing infrastructure for tomorrow, so that people get real benefits in terms of their quality of life.”
Source: www.euronews.com
