Collaborating with the UK helped Peru to ensure its economic and social needs were met.
In 2017, Peru was hit by a devastating flood that led to widespread damage across the country, costing 5 billion dollars in disrepair.
Only 2 years later, Peru was due to host the Pan American Games, which would require new infrastructure such as competition venues, athlete villages, and a convention centre.
But Peru’s infrastructure planning process lacked a clear purpose, and delivery was slow.
Under the pressure of the games’ deadline, Peru turned to the UK, setting up the first-ever government to government (G2G) partnership.
Peru saw a lot that it could learn from the UK, including from its experience hosting the 2012 London Games.
The G2G partnership helped Peru deliver infrastructure with purpose and pace, so much so that it used the same approach for post-disaster reconstruction.
Peru’s partnership with the UK embodies principle 7 of the Enabling Better Infrastructure (EBI) guidance, which focuses on building relationships for lasting change.
Establishing partnerships for change
To ensure Peru could host the Pan Am games in its capital of Lima, the government set up the first G2G partnership with the UK in 2019.
This agreement helped to streamline the strategic planning process to deliver the infrastructure needed to host the games. Thanks to the partnership, this was achieved in record time.
As part of the agreement, the UK shared best practices across a wide range of sectors, including:
- planning
- management
- contracting
- building infrastructure
One successful partnership leads to the next
The success in knowledge sharing led to a similar partnership with the UK to help Peru recover from the extreme weather events it experienced.
To help build (and re-build) vital infrastructure such as hospitals and schools, Peru’s Authority for Reconstruction for Changes (ARCC) signed another G2G agreement with the UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT).
The DIT supported UK businesses that had a background in planning, design, and construction to help build trust and streamline how the strategic planning process would be implemented.
Once again, knowledge sharing sat at the heart of the partnership, as parties exchanged insights on programme design and ways of developing more resilient infrastructure.
Training was a key part of the process
As part of both G2G partnerships, insight exchange was encouraged between all key stakeholders, including public officials, contractors, and industry.
This included professionals in more than 100 public and private organisations.
To ensure all parties could access these insights, all information collected was made available on an online learning portal.
Knowledge was shared in formal settings, such as courses and modules, and through informal training, like workshops, written guidance and site inspections.
Training was a great way to ensure that the insight and skills shared would outlast the partnership and benefit all key stakeholders in Peru.
This knowledge exchange enabled Peru to gain a better sense of what’s needed to achieve this in future projects.
How can Peru improve how it shares insights?
Looking forward, Peru can further develop policy structures to support the meaningful use of knowledge and data on infrastructure.
This can further help to streamline government decision-making processes, allowing Peru to continue to deliver on its infrastructure needs with purpose and pace.
Overall this will ensure resources from government and non-government stakeholders can continue to deliver impact.
To find out more about the meaningful use of data, see principle 8 of the EBI guidance.
Enabling Better Infrastructure
To learn more about prioritising infrastructure, take a look at the 3-step process in our EBI guidance.
