The SAVi team was invited to attend the kick-off event of the Solutions Lab on “Scaling for Sustainable Infrastructure” in Berlin in late November. This Solutions Lab is hosted by the Emerging Markets Sustainability Dialogues http://www.emsdialogues.org/ of GIZ (German Corporation for International Cooperation) and the Global Solutions Initiative https://www.global-solutions-initiative.org/. The Lab lasts for several months and combines a series of in-person meetings with virtual sessions between the participants.
The Lab facilitates dialogue and peer learning among a diverse set of selected stakeholders from the sustainable infrastructure ecosystem, including public infrastructure planners, tool providers, development banks, investors, think tanks, academia and NGOs. The three-day kick-off event in Berlin served to familiarize these participants with the process, identify roadblocks along the infrastructure cycle and define target areas where changes and innovation are needed. Among other objectives, the Solutions Lab is expected to provide inputs to the T20 process and establish working groups that continue developing solutions for the challenges that they identify, with this work continuing beyond the Lab’s currently scheduled duration.