The atoll nations of Kiribati, Maldives, the Marshall Islands, and Tuvalu face infrastructure resilience challenges shaped by low elevation, limited land area, sea-level rise, coastal hazards, freshwater vulnerability, and ecosystem degradation. Infrastructure systems are also closely interconnected. Disruption in one sector can affect essential services, connectivity, public finances, livelihoods, and economic activity.

The dialogue series examined how climate risk can be integrated across infrastructure planning, investment, financing, operation, and maintenance in ways that reflect national priorities. The Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure (CDRI) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) partnered through CDRI’s Infrastructure for Resilient Island States initiative and ADB’s Accelerating Atoll Adaptation (Triple-A) Initiative.

Triple-A works with participating governments and development partners to strengthen the links between climate-risk evidence, national priorities, adaptation pathways, investment design, and financing approaches. The dialogue series provides a forum for governments, development partners, technical experts, and private sector actors to examine practical issues affecting resilient infrastructure in atoll contexts.

The first dialogue focused on Strengthening Infrastructure Resilience to Climate Risks in Atoll Nations. The second focused on Financing and Insurance for Resilience of Critical Infrastructure. Building on these discussions, the third and final dialogue, Enabling Private Sector Engagement for Resilient Infrastructure in Atoll Nations, turned to private sector engagement in resilient infrastructure.

The discussion examined the conditions that shape private sector engagement in atoll contexts, including small markets, geographic isolation, high construction and operating costs, limited revenue bases and private capital, climate exposure, and institutional constraints. It also looked beyond private finance and public-private partnerships to consider practical roles for contractors, operators, maintenance providers, suppliers, advisers, local businesses, and investors.

This dialogue session focused on five practical questions for atoll nations:

• What conditions need to be in place for private sector engagement, including PPPs, to be realistic in atoll contexts? 
• How should climate, construction, operational, and other risks be allocated among governments, contractors, operators, investors, financiers, and development partners? 
• Where can private sector actors, including local contractors, operators, and maintenance providers, play practical roles when private financing or a PPP is not the right model? 
• How should future climate risk be reflected in infrastructure design, procurement, contracts, insurance, financing, and long-term maintenance? 
• What financing approaches, including ADB’s non-sovereign and blended-finance instruments, can help address the constraints facing smaller and higher-risk infrastructure investments in atoll nations?

The discussion explored practical considerations for governments, ADB, CDRI, and development partners on matching private sector roles and financing arrangements to the specific market, fiscal, institutional, and climate conditions of atoll nations. For Triple-A, the discussion informs how private sector roles, implementation conditions, risk allocation, and financing considerations are assessed as adaptation priorities move toward investment design and financing.

To learn more about the Triple-A Initiative, visit our website at: https://www.adb.org/what-we-do/topics/climate-change/triple-a-initiative