Holiday Greetings from CDIA Team

December 22, 2022

Dear Partners,

Before 2022 comes to a close, we would like to express our deep gratitude for all the support you gave us. It is only through our collective efforts that we were able to prepare inclusive, resilient, and sustainable projects in Asia-Pacific cities.

This year, we have completed six project preparation studies (PPS) in Georgia, Armenia, Viet Nam and the Philippines, ranging from helping cities transition to sustainable and inclusive mobility, to building their climate resilience and disaster preparedness capabilities.

We have also continued our eight PPS in Kyrgyz Republic, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Philippines, Lao PDR and Thailand by working closely with stakeholders in an inclusive, consultative, and complementary manner.

In addition, our Trust Fund Management has recently approved two applications for PPS support covering four cities in Cambodia and Bangladesh, and we are excited to support the cities translate their development ideas into bankable infrastructure projects.

Overall, CDIA has supported 131 cities in 22 developing countries in the last 15 years. It has completed 106 PPSs and linked 104 cities to downstream investments estimated at $12.2 billion (See our key highlights for 2022).

Beyond these numbers, CDIA has been lauded for its technical inputs as well as the innovations it brings into the early-stage project preparation. For example, we have continued to highlight capacity development as an integral part of our processes to establish the foundation of an effective and sustainable infrastructure investment. We have also adopted a climate resilience framework that builds on systems-based holistic planning, multilevel governance strengthening, social networks, and financial management.

We are pleased to share that in early December, the Government of Spain has contributed EUR 5 million to the CDIA Trust Fund to support our project preparation and capacity development activities. We have prioritized the development of a workplan that will enable Asia-Pacific cities to maximize their gains from our support in preparing climate-resilient infrastructure as well as in building local capacities, and engaging with other cities, including Spanish cities, for knowledge exchange.

As 2022 is our final year under the CDIA Strategy 2018-2022,  we have spent it celebrating our accomplishments and reckoning where we may have fallen short in our targets. We have also used the opportunity of looking back to chart where we want to go in the coming years, which we have concretized in the Strategy 2023-2027 that we prepared this year. Gradually, we have started transitioning to a new way of working, with a better view of how we can align ourselves with global agendas while adding more value for our partners.

We look forward to 2023 with renewed hope that under our new strategy and with increasing level of in-person activities across our projects, we can forge more meaningful partnerships as we deliver project studies with greater efficiency and more impactful, lasting outcomes.

Our heartfelt thanks to our donors, city and national government counterparts, downstream investment financiers, consultants, and all other partners who have been with us through the years. We renew our commitment in all efforts to build more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient cities in Asia and the Pacific.

We wish you a wonderful holiday season and we look forward to more fruitful collaborations in the new year!

CDIA Team

(Lara, Mon, An, Brian, Cathlyn, Cory, Fabienne, Kathleen, Meeko, Nick, and Ronald)