Nicholas Chow | Rethinking infrastructure in the era of climate change

The privatisation of public infrastructure is a contentious issue. However, after facing Hurricane Melissa, the Caribbean must see that time is running out for climate-proofing our nations. No single territory can withstand the growing threats of climate change. Neither can individual governments nor CARICOM support the costs of disaster recovery indefinitely. Resilient infrastructure is needed now, and carefully structured privatisation could offer a chance at getting there in time.

Infrastructure is the backbone of our society, yet it is routinely underfunded. Ageing assets and near-zero preventative maintenance lock governments into cycles of costly emergency fixes which proactive investment could have spared.

To address this issue, I propose a joint model where government retains ownership of assets while operations are privately run à la France. Even though the dangers of full privatisation are well-documented in cases like Cochabamba, Bolivia and the United Kingdom, privatising operations offers market efficiency in improving services and revenue without surrendering national assets. With improved efficiency, these gains can then be used to support green financing, which ties system performance to both profits and reinvestment, thus bettering infrastructure resilience year-over-year.

One way to achieve this is through the implementation of a regional system where each nation owns their assets, but a single private entity supports operations across the Caribbean. This institution would focus on raising the standards of service and resilience for the long-term benefit of our populations. Regional ownership of this initiative would keep our CARICOM infrastructure self-reliant and our financing and talent within the region.

The greatest obstacle in achieving this vision is legal alignment among nations and the will of our leaders. Weak legal protections and inconsistent governance have long discouraged the private involvement now urgently needed. Galvanising these systems could take time — but does CARICOM have years to wait before the next Melissa? Let public and private actors partner to share the risk now, to mitigate future losses to lives and livelihoods.

Nicholas Chow is a Trinbagonian DPhil student at the University of Oxford specialising in infrastructure resilience and climate change. His work examines the importance of governance and institutions in developing contexts especially for water, energy, and transport systems.