Making High Quality Infrastructure Investment Decisions in the Pacific: a Guide for Managing and Reviewing Economic Appraisals

Polis Partners worked with the Pacific Regional Infrastructure Facility (PRIF) to develop a comprehensive economic analysis guide and supporting tools for PRIF and its Pacific partners.

Pacific Island countries face growing pressure to deliver infrastructure projects amid climate, economic and geopolitical change, yet many have limited capability in developing business cases that meet donor expectations, increasing the risk of misalignment, delays and missed funding opportunities.

Our Guide focuses on the role of economic analysis across the infrastructure project lifecycle. It was developed in consultation with PRIF donors, including the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund, to ensure we captured their technical requirements.

To support practical application of the Guide, we developed a toolkit with checklists, evaluation tools, practitioner notes and case studies, and delivered targeted workshops and training sessions for Pacific government officials and industry practitioners. Our sessions combined guidance on best practice with practical discussions of country-specific and project-level challenges, to support capability uplift, improved project development and clearer pathways to infrastructure investment and delivery across the Pacific.

Our Guide and toolkit provide a region-specific approach to economic analysis that balances donor rigour with local delivery realities, strengthening essential in-country capability to support sustainable infrastructure investment and improve project readiness.