Reviving the G20 Infrastructure Agenda – Scott Morris

Summary

The CGD Podcast: Reviving the G20 Infrastructure Agenda – Scott Morris (March 11, 2014)

Episode Overview

This episode of the Global Prosperity Wonkcast, hosted by Lawrence MacDonald at the Center for Global Development, features Scott Morris, Senior Associate at CGD and former Deputy Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Treasury. The conversation centers around the G20’s progress—and struggles—with mobilizing finance for infrastructure in developing countries. Drawing from recommendations by a recent study group led by Morris, the episode examines what the G20 can do to make a tangible impact on global infrastructure investment, focusing on actionable proposals rather than more reports or superficial commitments.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Infrastructure Is Central to Development

[01:02 – 02:55]

• Scott Morris emphasizes the enduring priority of infrastructure for economic development, both in multilateral development efforts and among emerging market countries.

• Infrastructure spans more than just roads and bridges; it includes energy, water, household access, and the industrial backbone for job creation and growth.

  “From a development perspective, ...infrastructure needs rank, if not at the top of the list, high on the list of what countries really need to take off developmentally.”
  – Scott Morris [01:02]

• The renewed focus on infrastructure is driven largely by developing countries themselves—reflecting their needs and assertive voices in global development dialogue.

2. The G20’s Unique Role and Limitations

[04:25 – 07:40]

• G20 as an agenda-setter, not an implementer: Its primary impact on infrastructure comes via influencing multilateral development banks (MDBs) rather than direct project finance.

• The host rotation, lack of secretariat, and inability to pledge financial resources mean the G20 must focus on steering agencies like the World Bank and IMF through unified policy direction.

  “...what value [can the G20] provide the global community?... On infrastructure, you know, what is more concrete than infrastructure? And yet to date, it’s been a little bit of a struggle to point to real measurable outcomes…”
  – Scott Morris [04:51]

• The group acts as “shadow governance” for MDBs, with enough shareholder power to set their agendas through board representatives.

3. How the G20 Differs from the G7/G8

[09:08 – 09:21]

• G7 and G8 meetings produced big headline funding pledges, but the G20 deliberately avoids such commitments, focusing instead on non-financial levers like policy direction and consensus-building.

• The diversity of G20 members (ranging from the US and China to Brazil and Russia) gives it greater ambition and reach but less nimbleness.

  “The G20 very deliberately is not in that business [of pledging money]… they can be more ambitious than simply ponying up 10 or 20 million dollars here and there.”
  – Scott Morris [09:21]

4. Three Core Recommendations for the G20 Infrastructure Agenda

a. A Universal 'Doing Business'-Style Assessment for Infrastructure

[11:24 – 15:11]

• Proposal: An annual or biennial global “knowledge product”/report rating countries on barriers to infrastructure investment, modeled on the World Bank’s Doing Business survey—but focused on infrastructure markets.

• Its value lies in being a public good: fostering transparency, supporting reform through competition, and attracting investor interest.

  “What we’re calling for here is a tool in the toolkit... fashioned in a way that it has market value, frankly. So if you look at, for example, the Doing Business report... this is not just any other report.”
  – Scott Morris [11:24]

• Why not a private sector product? Only the G20 has the visibility, convening power, and incentives to create a free, universal resource—consultancies can’t match the scale or public good value.

  “I think it’s hard to have a truly global product that has the visibility that something like doing business has had. And this comes back to the value of the G20...”
  – Scott Morris [14:31]

b. Harnessing Pension Funds for Infrastructure Investment

[15:14 – 18:54]

• There’s a glaring mismatch: trillions of pension fund dollars exist, but only about 1% is invested in infrastructure ([16:06]).

• The G20 should act as a sustained convening platform for pension fund trustees, CEOs, CIOs, infrastructure managers, and crucially, regulators.

• The aim: To identify and overcome regulatory and market obstacles to greater pension fund investment.

  “What we do know is that there has not been enough discussion within the community about the ways in which they can get infrastructure investment done consistent with their investment needs. ...So what we’re proposing here is that the G20 provide the convening forum, which is one of the other things that the G20 can actually do very effectively.”
  – Scott Morris [16:06]

• Regulators’ involvement is key: Because pension funds are heavily regulated, only by including regulators can real barriers be addressed.

c. Sustained Support for Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs)

[18:54 – 21:22]

• Instead of chasing endlessly after innovative financing mechanisms, the focus should return to the basic: ensure robust core capital for MDBs to enable them to deliver on infrastructure.

• Past capital increases (in 2010) were spearheaded by the G20, showing its effectiveness at rallying shareholder support.

  “So much of the infrastructure agenda for the MDBS these days is about chasing new financing mechanisms... And what we’re saying here is don’t overlook your core financing. You are banks, you have capital. ...That is a tried and tested method.”
  – Scott Morris [19:51]

5. The G20 Troika – Ensuring Continuity

[21:22 – 23:30]

• The G20 Troika—comprised of the current, previous, and incoming presidency (in 2014: Australia, Russia, and Turkey)—is the primary tool for continuity in an otherwise structureless group.

  “It’s a way to ensure continuity in the agenda... those three work together throughout the year with the current year president in the lead. ...It certainly, I think, if nothing else, it has ensured some degree of consistency from year to year...”
  – Scott Morris [22:09]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “It has been a little bit of a struggle to point to real measurable outcomes that has had an impact on the ground in these countries.”
  — Scott Morris [04:51] (on G20’s infrastructure progress)
• “You are banks, you have capital. The capital comes from your shareholders. ...we’re calling on the G20 to take a serious look at the capital needs of these institutions.”
  — Scott Morris [19:51] (on MDB financing)
• “There’s a public good here. That’s right.”
  — Scott Morris [15:11] (on the value of a publicly available infrastructure report)
• “The G20 can actually bring actors together. ...provide opportunities for them to come together and figure out...how do we make it happen?”
  — Scott Morris [16:06] (on pension funds’ role)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:16 – 02:55: Introduction & why infrastructure matters for development
• 04:25 – 07:40: G20’s unique role, limitations, and influence over MDBs
• 09:08 – 09:21: Why the G20 does not pledge money like the G7/G8
• 11:24 – 15:11: Recommendation 1 – Global infrastructure investment report
• 15:14 – 18:54: Recommendation 2 – Mobilizing pension fund investment
• 18:54 – 21:22: Recommendation 3 – Core capital support for MDBs
• 21:22 – 23:30: The G20 Troika and ensuring agenda continuity

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Episode Tone & Style

The discussion is forthright yet diplomatic, rooted in policy realism and the practical limitations of international institutions. There’s a mix of insider knowledge and accessible explanation, with a tone of “pragmatic optimism”—not shying away from past disappointments but laying out concrete, actionable steps for improvement.

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Summary: Why This Conversation Matters

By spotlighting the concrete ways the G20 can move its infrastructure agenda beyond rhetorical or superficial progress—through impactful information products, targeted convening power, and robust support for MDBs—Scott Morris offers a pragmatic blueprint. For listeners interested in global development, finance, and policy, this episode demystifies the G20’s real-world impact and highlights where genuine change is possible—if political will aligns with practical action.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Global Prosperity wonkcast. I'm Lawrence MacDonald. My guest today is Scott Morris. He's a senior associate here at the center for Global Development and before he joined us about a year a year ago, he was the Deputy Assistant secretary at the U.S. treasury, among other things, looking after U.S. ties with the Multilateral Development Bank. Scott, welcome to the show.

[B]

Thank you, Lawrence. It's good to be here.

[A]

You recently led what we sometimes call here, a study group, a group of colleagues and outsiders who sat down to look at the G20's progress in providing finance for infrastructure and offered some suggestions. And part of what we're going to do today is. Is talk about three of the five suggestions you put forward. But before we do that, why infrastructure?

[B]

Well, from a development perspective, I think we've known for a long time that infrastructure needs rank, if not at the top of the list, high on the list of what countries really need to take off developmentally. So it's been at the top of the agenda in the broader development community and actually it's been at the top of the agenda for the G20's development agenda since there was a G20 development agenda. So it's really, we saw this as a good time and a good opportunity to take a Look at the G20's track record and then offer some suggestions on where they should be going from here.

[A]

When we talk about infrastructure, we're talking about trains, planes, automobiles, power plants.

[B]

That's exactly right. It's all the hard infrastructure, but it's not, you know, it's not just roads and bridges. It's about providing energy needs, power needs, it's about providing clean water. So it's at the household level, but it's also, it's powering and fueling industries so that countries have a basis for job creation and growth.

[A]

This is sort of back to the future. I mean, when the World bank was established, that's what everybody thought it was going to do, was provide capital to rebuild Europe and then to build up the former colonies as they became independent. And it was sort of all infrastructure all the time, is my understanding. Is that right?

[B]

I think the pendulum swings back and forth. I think we are firmly in a period of time where infrastructure has re established itself as the centerpiece certainly of what the multilateral development banks are doing. But more importantly, I would say today is that this is coming squarely and directly from the developing countries of the as they assert their voices in the development dialogue. This is, it's what motivates putting infrastructure at the top of the list. This is what they want and what they need.

[A]

It emerged, if I remember correctly, when the Koreans hosted the G20 summit, they put forward a. I think it was maybe a 20 plank development platform. And a lot of that has since fallen by the wayside, but the infrastructure piece has persisted. And I suspect that's partly, as you say, the big emerging market. Developing countries, the. Of the G20 recognize that they need it badly. They very much want it. But also some of the more developed countries, I think, see contracting opportunities among them. Korea is a big provider of international infrastructure. The United States competes in that market. France does. If there were more financing and better regulations in place to have an explosion in infrastructure, that would be big business for some of the big industrial countries that belong to the G20.

[B]

Yeah, I think that's a fair point. I mean, there's no question within the G20 there's been no disagreement over the priority of this issue. And yes, I think depending on where you sit as a country, you come at this with particular interest. Yes, there could be a direct interest in procurement opportunities. But frankly, for countries like the US European countries, they also see the potential for these economies as future trading partners and, you know, really see the need for roads and bridges that connect local communities to ports as a basis for future trade. And that has certainly motivated those countries in the discussions.

[A]

There's a paragraph at the start of your note. I had to chuckle. It's so politely written. Much of the G20's early work on infrastructure entailed the commissioning of reports by the multilateral development banks and and other international organizations and experts. These reports have played an important foundational role for the G20's works. But more reports of this sort will not constitute a meaningful agenda going forward. Was that intentionally just a little bit tongue in cheek there?

[B]

Look, they've done some very good reports. That's genuine praise. But in many respects, the infrastructure agenda is emblematic of, of some of the challenges that the G20 faces, not only in development, but their broader agenda is that, you know, how does the G20 define its work and what value it can provide the global community? And you know, they have struggled on their development agenda. As you said, there was a very ambitious multifaceted agenda that was launched in 2010 and, you know, a real struggle to, to take that and deliver something concrete from it. And certainly on infrastructure, you know, what is more concrete than infrastructure? And yet to date, it's been a little bit of a struggle to point to real measurable outcomes that has had an impact on the ground in these countries.

[A]

Well, there's no there there for the G20. It's a collection of countries. It's a movable feast. They go from country to country. Each presidency comes up with its own agenda, and it has no secretariat, and so it has no implementing capability. Against that background, when you make recommendations, you know, to whom are you making them? You're making them to the leadership and to the finance ministers that meet on behalf of the leaders and to the working groups that are interim below the finance ministers. But I know that you understand this well and are very aware of it. You need to make recommendations that the G20 leadership can say, yes, World bank, you should do x, or yes, IMF or yes, somebody should do something. Because the G20 themselves don't have a mechanism for collective action.

[B]

Yeah, no, that's right. I mean, a couple of things. One, for all those reasons, the lack of it, you know, this is not an institution in any formal sense. It's actually impressive that you see an agenda as sustained as the infrastructure agenda has been, that there has been continuity across these turnovers in the presidency of the G20. But you're right. I mean, what's important is to think about, given what this group is, what can they do? And you're right, one of the key things that they can do, particularly in the development space, is act as essentially shadow governance of the multilateral institutions. If you add up their shareholding in the World bank, they essentially own the World Bank. So it's a very powerful platform for a group of 20 countries to get together and figure out what do they want out of multilateral development banks. When it comes to infrastructure, that's a very large part of what they can do. And you know who wrote those reports that have been done so far? The MDBs. I mean, that's where the work is being done.

[A]

So if the G20 can agree among themselves through these various working groups and then elevating it to the leaders, that yes, they'd like to see the World bank do X, it's pretty straightforward that they can then, through their boards and the representatives they appoint to those boards, tell the bank that it should do it.

[B]

That's right. And we've seen that already in the last five years or so on key issues like major recapitalization of all the MDBs in 2010, very contentious issues like voice and vote reform in the World bank and quota reform in the IMF. It was really the G20, that was the platform where these issues were hashed out, not within the institutions themselves. So that's you will see in our note on recommendations for the G20. This is really a core element is that ways in which the G20 can focus the agendas of the MDBs around infrastructure and do something different. And then there are some other areas that we can get to where the G20 has a unique role to play. That is in contrast, if you consider the G7 and historically the role the G7 is played, again an informal body. But what the G7 did that was meaningful and very concrete is that they rallied financing commitments. I mean they around sectors and initiatives. The G7 came together and they pledged money.

[A]

Well, there was an expectation on behalf of the Press and the NGOs that if there was going to be a G7 or later G8 meeting, the reporters wanted to know what's the headline figure? How much money did you commit? The G20 is not in that business.

[B]

And the G20 very deliberately is not in that business. I think it's one of the things that all the G20 members agreed on is that they were not going to create a new forum to pledge money. And so that is very visibly absent from the G20's work. And I don't think it's a fault of their work. In fact, I think it's consistent with the broader development dialogue that not everything we do, particularly with such a powerful group of countries where you have a US with a China and a Brazil and a Russia all at the same table, they can be more ambitious than simply ponying up 10 or 20 million dollars here and there.

[A]

With that in mind, we're going to take a short break and when we come back, we're going to gallop through the three of the five recommendations that before we started you told me were the ones thought are most interesting. This is the Global Prosperity Wonkcast from the center for Global Development. We will be back in a moment. Welcome back to the Global Prosperity wonkast. I'm Lawrence MacDonald. With me in the studio today is Scott Morris, former Deputy Assistant secretary at the U.S. treasury and now a Senior Associate with us here at the center for Global Development. We're talking about recommendations from his recent study group to the G20 on how they can follow through on their promises to increase finance and attention to infrastructure. Scott, in the first part we discussed the reason that the G20 does not pledge finance and the ways in which there is implementation capability is pretty much limited to telling the multilateral financial institutions what to do. Your first recommendation sounds to me a lot like a new report. It Calls for a new global knowledge product for infrastructure. Tell me why this is different from all other reports that have come before it.

[B]

I think it's important to think of what we're calling for here is a tool in the toolkit. So yes, the delivery mechanism will be a report, perhaps an annual report or every two years, but fashioned in a way that it has market value, frankly. So if you look at for example, the doing business report, where you know this is not just any other report.

[A]

This is the World Bank's. Is it an annual survey?

[B]

This is a World bank has been done by the IFC historically that both measures and then ranks countries according to their around their ease of doing business in their economies. So what we're envisioning here is really something akin to that where there is a country by country exercise looking at the obstacles to investing in infrastructure in not just the developing world. Frankly, it would be a universal exercise, just as it is for doing business.

[A]

Some of our listeners are pretty familiar with the doing business survey, others not so much. But I think one thing, even those like me who know it only casually, they're pretty familiar with the fact that it's focused on manufacturing and services. How long does it take to get a permit to open a new factory? What are the barriers to getting a container in and out of a container port? So it's not the same kinds of questions I'm going to ask if I'm a pension fund may be going to invest billions of dollars in a power plant or a road network.

[B]

Yeah, that's right. I mean doing business as a product does not serve the direct needs of infrastructure investment. There are other exercises out there that are more focused on infrastructure, but there are none that are global and universal in a way that we see value in. Bringing all these pieces together, I think really meeting two needs. One is, I think there's a diagnostic exercise that would be of tremendous value.

[A]

Diagnostic meaning finding out what the barriers are.

[B]

That's right. So for a country, if it's the World bank or a coalition of the MDBs doing this work, it would be very helpful for a country to know where are the barriers within its economy for investment to flow into infrastructure. And then there's a value to investors globally and again that ultimately benefits the countries because it brings a profile to their economies as a place to invest. And frankly, if you take it to the level of ranking exercises you have in doing business, I think there's some healthy competition there to reform and to make sure that consistent with your values and your goals as A country that you have an attractive environment for investment when it comes to infrastructure.

[A]

I want to move on to the second one. But first, the little smidge of libertarianism that's in me wants to say if this is so important, why hasn't the private sector stepped up and done this? There are plenty of consulting firms out there that do this kind of work. Why couldn't they just run the survey and sell the results?

[B]

Well, I think it's hard to have a truly global product that has the visibility that something like doing business has had. And this comes back to the value of the G20. And thinking hard about what the G20 can actually deliver if something like this knowledge product were created and its origins coming from the G20, I think it gives it visibility that it wouldn't otherwise have if it were purely market driven products.

[A]

And I guess part of its power is that it's public. So if I create it as a consulting firm and I make it public, I can no longer sell it.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

Non rivalrous nature.

[B]

There's a public good here. That's right. That's right.

[A]

I want to turn to the next one because I think it's one of the more exciting ideas that you have. And that has to do with basically liberating the pension fund investment. There's been lots of talk, as you note in the preamble to this section of the note about the great match between pension funds. Pension funds are supposed to invest for the long term. Infrastructure is a long term investment. There's trillions of dollars tied up in pension funds. There's trillions of dollars needed for infrastructure. What is it going to take to. And I guess you also have a very powerful statistic. OECD estimates that only about 1% of the total value of pension funds are invested in infrastructure, either directly or through intermediaries. So what would it take to liberate these pension funds? Or we might say harness them or tap them for infrastructure. What are you proposing here?

[B]

Well, I think you'll see in our proposal some humility in trying to answer that question. The bottom line is we don't know concretely what it will ultimately take. Which is why our recommendation is for the G20 to serve as a platform for the pension fund community. Because what we do know is that there has not been enough discussion within the community about the ways in which they can get infrastructure investment done consistent with their investment needs. Within that 1% that is invested, that's, you know, there's significant financing going on. What are the lessons learned from that, I don't think those lessons have been widely shared throughout the pension fund community, if you think of this community as a global one. So what we're proposing here is that the G20 provide the convening forum, which is one of the other things that the G20 can actually do very effectively. So separate from anything that is engaged with the MDBs, the G20 can actually bring actors together. And what we are suggesting is a sustained engagement that is targeted specifically at pension funds, providing opportunities for them to come together and figure out, okay, if there is a clear rationale for why we should invest in infrastructure, and that's been made so far, how do we make it happen? And how do we identify the obstacles that we see to these investments and then how do we get help to overcoming those obstacles?

[A]

I liked your list of the players here. You know, shows some knowledge of pension funds, certainly more than I've got key trustees, the CEOs and or the CIOs, infrastructure fund managers at the pension funds, and then also the regulators. Because it's one thing, if the pension funds want to do it, they're of course very heavy regulated, as perhaps they should be, since they have everybody's pension tied up in them. What would the regulators think is going to be an appropriate use of those funds? If those people were brought together over time, then your idea is that they would identify some of the changes that might be necessary to elicit greater investment of pension funds into infrastructure.

[B]

That's right. And the regulators in particular are important here. Keep in mind, the G20 itself is, is a group of 20 governments. And the G20 operates these days at the leaders level. So that's the whole of government for each of these 20 countries. And that includes pension regulators. They can play a very powerful role as part of these discussions around how they regulate domestically, their pension funds and the impact that can have on the fund's abilities to invest globally in infrastructure. So I actually see a lot of promise in that. And my hope is that that is an area that the G20 can operate in.

[A]

We've got just a couple more minutes here. I want to take the third of your recommendations that we're going to discuss today. It's actually number four in your list of five for those who are looking at the note. And that has to do with asking the G20 members to make a sustained commitment to the multilateral development banks. Those who follow CGD's work will recognize a familiar theme here. We don't take institutional positions, but I think that all of the colleagues here, who would differ on many other things, agree that the multilateral development banks can be a very effective mechanism for promoting development and that the donor countries and the big emerging markets would do better to finance them more generously. Is there something new or different within the infrastructure argument beyond this sort of familiar litany from CGD about yes, please back the MDBs?

[B]

I think what's new is that we're calling for something that's very old in the context of a lot of energy spent on innovation. So what do I mean by that? So much of the infrastructure agenda for the MDBS these days is about chasing new financing mechanisms and new sources of funding, whether it is the pension fund community or sovereign wealth funds or other private actors. You know, the World bank and these other institutions are very actively courting these sources of funding through the promise of new financing mechanisms. And what we're saying here is don't overlook your core financing. You are banks, you have capital. The capital comes from your shareholders. And so we're calling on the G20 to take a serious look at the capital needs of these institutions. Institutions which will have a direct impact on their ability to do infrastructure investment. And that is a tried and tested method. And in fact it is one that the G20 itself has employed. I mentioned earlier the 2010 work that ultimately led to recapitalization of all the multilateral development banks. The G20 achieved that. They were the ones who set this target and then really made it happen in a way that they can going forward as well in a non crisis environment. So that's what is new here, is really drawing the direct connection between an infrastructure agenda and the core financing needs of these infrastructure investors.

[A]

Final question. The note interestingly is addressed to the troika, the G20 troika. The insiders will know that that's the past host, the current host and the future host that Australia currently holds the presidency of the G20 and will be hosting this year's summit later this year. Talk to me just a little bit about this notion of a troika and whether it's. You must have dealt with it quite a lot when you were inside U.S. treasury. It seems as sort of an odd notion that these three would somehow constitute a group. And who is the third member? I guess Australia is the current. So the future is.

[B]

Is Turkey.

[A]

Is Turkey.

[B]

Turkey will have the presidency next year.

[A]

So Turkey, Australia and Russia are going to agree on something concerning the GPA in the next six to eight months.

[B]

Yeah, well, so first of all, it was called the troika before the Russians had the presidency. So this is really a. It's a way to ensure continuity in the agenda. So as a governance tool, you know, as we discussed earlier, recognizing that this is not an institution with any, even a core secretariat, you need some way to ensure that from year to year you have an consistent handoff in the agenda. And so they created this troika structure of having the current president paired with the previous year's president and then the future year presidency. And those three work together throughout the year with the current year president in the lead. But the three of them are actively involved in managing meetings, managing the content of meetings. And I, I think it makes a lot of sense in practice. Yes, there are some challenges there. I think it's hard enough for a single government to ensure, over the course of a year, a coherent and consistent agenda and then to add other voices in the leadership role can be a bit of a challenge. But it certainly, I think, if nothing else, it has ensured some degree of consistency from year to year, so. So that you aren't reinventing the wheel every year with the agenda.

[A]

Well, thank you very much, Scott. I always learn a lot when I talk to you. Having been an insider and now being an informed outsider, I think you're in a terrific position both to offer concrete suggestions for the G20 and to tell the rest of us why it's of interest and why it might matter. This has been the Global Prosperity Wonkcast from the center for Global Development. My guest today is Scott Morris and we've been talking about the G20 and infrastructure finance. You can find the Wonkast online on itunes and on stitcher. Just search for wonkcast or CGD and please sign up to hear a new interview each week. Until next time, I'm Lawrence McDonald. Thanks for listening.