Infrastructure projects tend to be at the center of national development strategies and they are considered essential for economic recovery, achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and compliance with climate agreements. In this context, the Center for Sustainability Studies (FGVces) at Fundação Getulio Vargas’ Sao Paulo School of Business Administration (FGV EAESP) is launching a publication titled A Social and Regional Infrastructure Classification System: A Proposal for the Brazilian Amazon, resulting from its partnership with WWF-Brasil.

In the Amazon region, it is necessary to consider the challenges inherent to these projects, due to changes historically brought about by the execution of large schemes and the failure to provide essential services associated with basic infrastructure, as shown in the region’s development indicators, which are invariably lower than the national average.

This document is the result of the second phase of the partnership between the organizations. It sets out some key aspects related to infrastructure, associated with these projects’ objectives (generally to promote development models centered on the demands and priorities of local people, protect communities and conserve social and biological diversity) and their entire implementation life cycle.

Inspired by recent initiatives to build classification systems for economic activities, known as green or sustainable taxonomies, the report presents possible ways to structure a taxonomy focused on infrastructure classification.

Innovation

This proposal differs from previous taxonomies in terms of its structure and tailored approach. The system focuses on infrastructure and it is designed for a specific subnational region.

As well as having an evaluation stage to select infrastructure that can be classified as social-regional based on an assessment of its contribution to specific strategic objectives for the Amazon, the system has an additional layer to appraise the performance of selected infrastructure projects. The goal of this stage is to assess how issues associated with a regional approach to development are addressed and incorporated.

The proposal was (and continues to be) built in collaboration with the Social and Regional Infrastructure Thematic Working Group, created as part of the Cooperation for the Amazon initiative. The work is now entering the third phase, whose main objective is to engage with potential users of the tool to make it even more applicable and further develop the classification system’s different components.

Click here to read the full document.

To find out more about FGVces, visit its website.