SOURCE —THE MULTILATERAL PLATFORM FOR SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE

Quality and sustainable infrastructure investments are needed to rebuild smartly and create a more resilient, inclusive, and equitable world. Digital transformation has become an urgent need for governments. This publication presents the SOURCE platform, a digital transformation tool that is financed and led by multilateral development banks. SOURCE is a key tool for governments to prepare well-developed projects in alignment with international standards such as the G20 Principles for Quality Infrastructure Investment. SOURCE can be integral to capacity building for best practices in project management, for building infrastructure databases for measuring achievements, and for raising bankability and attracting private sector financing of projects contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement.


Foreword
Infrastructure projects help drive economic prosperity and provide a solid base for strong, sustainable, balanced, and inclusive growth and development.Well-prepared infrastructure projects are also key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which are now more relevant than ever.As such, SOURCE, an operating platform supported by multilateral development banks to address the financing gap in sustainable infrastructure, is a promising tool for helping countries to design and manage projects aligned with the SDGs and other international agreements.
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has highlighted the world's vulnerability to shocks and stresses, and many countries are now even more offtrack in achieving the SDGs than before the pandemic.According to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), the financing gap in 2019 was around $1.5 trillion a year (5% of regional gross domestic product) to fully achieve the SDGs by 2030.To address this gap, governments have implemented recovery programs with the support of the Asian Development Bank and other multilateral and bilateral development partners.Their immediate financial response packages helped to alleviate the public health crisis and its consequences on the real sector.
However, substantially more private sector financing is required to address the enormous needs for economic recovery and mitigate adverse development impacts.History has shown that a crisis can become an opportunity if the disruptions or shocks compel reforms that would otherwise not be considered feasible under normal conditions.The COVID-19 recovery programs offer a unique opportunity to craft a path consonant with green, resilient, inclusive, and sustainable infrastructure development, in line with the SDGs.
Investing in sustainable and quality infrastructure projects is crucial to rebuild smartly and create a more inclusive and equitable world.Major reforms across sectors are still needed to create more resilient societies.
As we all witnessed, digital transformation accelerated during the pandemic and has caused major structural shifts to new ways of production, cooperation, and consumption across the world.Similarly, the digitalization of processes related to infrastructure projects and investments provides a key opportunity for driving the agenda of sustainable economic development and collective resilience.SOURCE is an outstanding example of a digital transformation tool.The platform has been designed through joint efforts among multilateral development banks and enables a systemic transition to the digitalization of infrastructure project development and data collection.SOURCE is a crucial mechanism helping countries to build a pipeline of infrastructure projects aligned with the SDGs as well as to the G20 Principles for Quality Infrastructure Investment.Some 50 countries have expressed interest in using SOURCE.Some have already launched a full integration of SOURCE into their national systems for infrastructure project development, while others are considering and planning pilot projects to test and evaluate the platform's benefits.
vi Foreword This publication will enhance the awareness of SOURCE as a digital platform to support public sector agencies with standardized processes that promote sustainable infrastructure projects.The use of SOURCE can be integral to capacity building for best practices in project management, for building infrastructure databases essential to measuring achievements, and for raising bankability and attracting private sector financing of projects aligned with and facilitating the achievement of SDGs.The team benefited from significant ADB internal and external peer-reviewer inputs and feedback by the following:

Executive Summary
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic exposed the world's fragile development progress and likewise revealed its capacity for financial resilience when confronted with disasters.This global robustness provides an opportunity to build back better and boost awareness of the urgency and benefit of sustainable development and infrastructure investment.This is especially critical in the face of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the disruptions in global supply chains that exacerbate the need to boost innovative solutions to address the climate and food emergency.
The worldwide transformation to digital economies is a key driver in the important agenda of sustainable finance.Supporting this transformation is the digital multilateral platform, SOURCE, which helps ensure well-prepared infrastructure projects in governments' digitalization agendas.
SOURCE is a global and scalable information technology platform, hosted by the United Nations, acting as a unique delivery system for the world's best practices in infrastructure project development.Its structured databased approach is designed to strengthen accountability and transparency and to support informed decisions that meet local, regional, and global standards.
The SOURCE framework is designed to optimize the efficiency of stimulus packages being prepared in response to COVID-19, by ensuring swift deployment of investments while preserving their compliance with objectives such as the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement.Infrastructure gap.For most emerging and developing countries, the major obstacle in mobilizing and channeling private capital in infrastructure is the lack of a pipeline of well-prepared, bankable, and investable projects.The incentives are low for potential project sponsors to commit to the high development costs of bid proposals, due to project implementation uncertainties.The inability of sovereign and sub-sovereign agencies to prepare a consistent supply of structured projects offering a standardized risk allocation scheme and satisfactory investment return remains a major bottleneck.This is because projects suffer from poor development and unclear legal and regulatory frameworks, leading to delays and a lack of transparency in the bidding process.
Bridging large infrastructure gaps will therefore require greater capacity in countries to identify, structure, and procure projects that meet international standards (including governance, social, and environmental).
The multilateral development banks have all acknowledged this need and are thus committed to private sector development and to increase private sector operations significantly toward 2030.
Need for quality infrastructure.In 2019, Japan assumed the G20 Presidency, 2 and the major infrastructure outcome was the endorsement of the G20 Principles for Quality Infrastructure Investment.The preamble to the principles notes a renewed emphasis on quality infrastructure investment that will build on past G20 presidency efforts to mobilize financing from various sources.This includes private sector and institutional sources (including multilateral development banks) in particular to help close the infrastructure gap, developing infrastructure as an asset class, and maximizing the positive impacts of infrastructure investment according to country conditions. 3The G20 Principles include the following to promote quality infrastructure investment: (i) Maximize the positive impact of infrastructure to achieve sustainable growth and development.
(ii) Raise economic efficiency in view of the life-cycle cost.
(iii) Integrate environmental considerations in infrastructure investments.
(iv) Build resilience against disasters and other risks.
(v) Integrate social considerations in infrastructure investment.

Why SOURCE?
SOURCE is a critical tool that helps to answer the following questions in detail: • How can an effective project management system enhance coordination among the many stakeholders during the complex lifecycle of an infrastructure project?• How will it help to have a standardized workflow process to foster accountability and transparency and to allow checks against targeted performance indicators?• How can the capacity of implementing agencies be strengthened to provide them an information management system that gives access to best practice procedures and to all relevant data available for each stakeholder at each step of the process?The Asian Development Bank (ADB) originated SOURCE as the National Infrastructure Information System under a regional technical assistance project4 approved in 2009 for the benefit of the organization's developing member countries.In 2013, the platform was renamed the International Infrastructure Support System and its management transferred to the Sustainable Infrastructure Foundation (SIF), a not-for-profit organization registered in Switzerland, to make it an international tool to be used widely by all interested parties and for multilateral development banks to collaborate more easily.
ADB's technical assistance subsequently supported the upgrading of the platform and the development of the original infrastructure templates until 2014.The platform was eventually launched globally in 2016 and finally renamed SOURCE in 2017.
In this form, SOURCE provided public sponsors with a collaborative and secure workspace, based on subsectorial templates built on a compendium of good practices jointly designed with the private sector.SOURCE's templates covered all aspects of the project, i.e., governance, technical, economic, legal, financial, environmental, and social.The templates come from and are updated with inputs from leading private sector investors/sponsors/ operators/financiers and advisors.This effectively takes best practice and knowledge from the private sector and distills it into usage/guidance that can be used from the outset of a government team's efforts to start preparing a project.So far, more than 7,000 comments have been provided by the private sector, making SOURCE a standardized dataset creating the international common language between the public and private sectors.
During an initial outreach phase during 2016-2019, the platform benefited more than 3,200 users across 59 countries and supported the development of close to 400 infrastructure projects worldwide.• define and direct the operations related to the development, maintenance, and management of the SOURCE platform; • oversee the activities of SIF in accordance with the agreed revenue model for the distribution of the SOURCE platform; and • advise SIF to strengthen SOURCE's performance and scalability.
In March 2019, the SOURCE Council endorsed a new strategy for deploying SOURCE in its member economies via an integration process.
This came after a stock-taking exercise that concluded that the initial approach followed was not meeting SOURCE's transformational agenda.Irrespective of the usefulness and practicality of the platform, an institutional framework is required to ensure efficient and sustainable implementation and adoption by government agencies.All SIF trainings conducted in the first phase of deployment of the platform have been central to the dissemination and promotion of the tool, and allowed professional practitioners to test the software and provide their feedback.But punctual trainings eventually brought little change at the organizational level, which is where SOURCE brings its full benefits.
The integration strategy was therefore developed, whereby SIF customizes SOURCE to the local regulatory framework and enables its adoption by all relevant agencies through a vast campaign of training.Following the successful integration, SIF guarantees the continuity of services and provides technical support to user countries at no cost to the government.The process of integrating SOURCE encompasses the following workstreams, in accordance with the process described in Figure 1: • Policy stream-which entails a review of the primary and secondary legislation potentially conflicting with the implementation of SOURCE platform for infrastructure project delivery and the development of recommendations to the regulatory approach that will aim to eliminate conflicts and implement adjustments to the platform itself.• Process stream-which identifies and maps out current processes, taxonomy, and governance to appropriately customize the SOURCE platform to the needs and framework of the country.• IT tools stream-which focuses on technical integration of the SOURCE platform and development of technical adjustments required to ensure interoperability with the existing IT tools and databases, and its testing and user training.
To address the above needs and enable efficient adoption by governments, SOURCE has evolved from an online knowledge dissemination vehicle to a complete information technology solution (Figure 2).

Phase 3: Scaling Up Integration toward Financial Sustainability
The officialization of the executive role of multilateral development banks in SOURCE's governance through the creation of the SOURCE Council proved central to the scaling up of SOURCE's dissemination in global events, recognition of its central role by the G20 Infrastructure Working Group, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, UN agencies, and adoption by governments.
The Summit on the Financing of African Economies in Paris in May 2021, for instance, led to the endorsement of SOURCE and its deployment in Africa by more than 50 heads of state.Appendix 1 lists major references to SOURCE in international publications.
In June 2020, the SOURCE Council approved a revenue model based on a plan to complete the integration of SOURCE in 40 countries within a 5-year period, funded by donors.This revenue model aims to leverage the massive surge in the number of users and information collected on the platform to develop diverse revenue streams that will gradually replace the current financial support from multilateral development banks and ensure SOURCE's long-term financial sustainability.While SOURCE will continue offering business intelligence features at no cost for public sector users to provide insights, analytics, benchmarks, and trends on their pipeline and their region to make better informed decisions, revenue will be generated by monetizing anonymized/aggregated business reports for the private sector. 5 In the 5-year ramp-up period so far, SIF and multilateral development banks have already started to coordinate and raise donor funding to provide part or all of the required financial support to facilitate the required country integrations, while the revenues generated will cover future integrations with or without donors.SOURCE's global demand from governments around the world keeps growing (Figure 3) and the SOURCE Council's key priorities are identifying solutions to raise more funds to meet the demand coming from their members and continuing to support and ensure that the SIF can successfully implement the revenue model for financial sustainability.SOURCE can play a key role in helping countries overcome the COVID-19 crisis in global supply chain consequences by supporting the digitalization agenda, reinforcing coordination, and reducing competitiveness bottlenecks.

5
The quality of reports is only as good as the quality of data -this is a challenge faced by all multilateral development banks, international organizations, and private system databases.For this, several features to enable data verification by third parties have been integrated into SOURCE, and SIF is continuously improving platform capability to conduct automatic quality assessment.

SOURCE's Key Value Propositions
Operationalizing Multilateral Development Bank Knowledge Products SOURCE templates break down the whole project cycle into well-defined individual steps.This enables the platform to deliver international tools, guidance, and best practices to the right audience at the right juncture in decision-making.It allows a wider array of projects than the one multilateral development banks are supporting.SOURCE already embeds references to World Bank documents and guidance, to the Association of Project Managers Group PPP Guide, the International Finance Corporation performance standards, and many others (Table 1).Further, multilateral development banks' screening and scoring tools can be embedded into SOURCE to drive the UN Sustainability Agenda and the banks' key operational goals.It can disseminate these methodologies to all the banks' members and positively influence decision-making in early project stages.
The MDB Infrastructure Cooperation Platform notes in the guidance note on project development6 that the "SOURCE platform should be rather considered as an enabling platform to deliver scale and consistency to the entire workstream presented in the document.Through its structured approach to project data and the growing adoption of the platform by national government agencies and multilateral development banks, SOURCE would also enable the collection of standardised project data globally and the usage of MDB tools."In the same document, SOURCE occupies a unique position across the full project cycle, as per the table reproduced in Figure 4.    Source: Sustainable Infrastructure Foundation, 2023.

Enabling Sustainable Development Goal Measurement
The standardized project development templates on SOURCE cover both traditional procurement methods and public-private partnerships.From project definition to operation and maintenance, SOURCE allows public agencies to define clear SDG targets early, during development, that can be integrated and monitored across the lifecycle.SOURCE, therefore, empowers government agencies to set up quantified targets, defining clear expected positive impacts related to the SDGs, going further than simple declaration of good intentions.These targets and positive impacts can then be monitored during construction and operation and maintenance to make sure projects comply with set targets.Automatic quality assessment of project documentation may be done across the stages by the "consistency checks" function in SOURCE.Indeed, a red flag appears when an SDG is targeted but not translated into quantified targets as part of the expected positive impacts identified during the project in the appraisal stage.An SDG impact dashboard (Figure 5) is also available at the portfolio level in SOURCE.It provides a visual representation of the key indicators of the portfolio of projects managed in SOURCE against each relevant SDG.
Moreover, SOURCE can also assess projects regarding its gender equality targets, according to the SDG 5 (Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls).The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and SIF contracted a gender consultant with the specific objective of developing and providing the gender-and inclusion-related actions as part of the SOURCE project development tool.

Providing a Global Information Technology Solution that Ongoing Initiatives Need
In addition to be the digital dissemination platform for international standards, SOURCE is a global information technology (IT) solution that can host and deliver existing tools.For example, SIF embedded the PPP Risk Allocation Tool into SOURCE with the support of the Global Infrastructure Hub to enable informing of project developers about the allocation of risks-as between the public and private partners in typical PPP transactions for 18 different types of projects-by answering the questions in the SOURCE templates.Delivery challenges from the Global Delivery Initiative were also embedded into SOURCE.Based on the project's geographical region, sector SOURCE provides a list of the most recurring delivery challenges to alert the project team and help them in risk assessment.
SOURCE can also be part of IT systems designed by ongoing initiatives to feed complementary platforms with standardized data.The Finance to Accelerate the Sustainable Transition-Infrastructure (FAST-Infra) 7 initiative identified SOURCE as the central component of its end-to-end platform technology platform.The projects initiated by public entities will therefore be originated from SOURCE, which will also enable the auto-assessment 7 HSBC.2021, https://www.sustainablefinance.hsbc.com/sustainable-infrastructure/fast-infra-a-public-private-initiative.* Bespoke solutions refer to new IT tools that are developed for a specific user or government, by opposition to "off-the-shelf" solutions.
of their project documentation against the FAST-Infra label before transferring the relevant data to the FAST data platform for the deal origination.
SOURCE provides a comprehensive project management system, which reinforces high-quality gatekeeping adapted to country frameworks, and embeds a compendium of best practices and guidance references from the international community and the private sector.This combination of services, and the positioning of the platform across the full project cycle, makes SOURCE a unique offering from multilateral development banks and international organizations' perspectives.It is also a unique offering among commercial solutions, which focus on process management functionalities (MS Project, Primavera, etc.) and information management (Dropbox, Ansarada, etc.) and/or provide specific services for well-identified revenue-generating segments of the project cycle (e.g., BIM, data room solutions).Figure 6 summarizes the full array of SOURCE's value propositions with key representative solutions providing similar services.
The multilateral development bank-led governance of SOURCE is also appropriate to address governments' confidentiality and sovereignty concerns 8 similar to the Global Emerging Markets Risk Database Consortium or other solutions supported by the multilateral development banks.These include, for example, SNIP 9 in Latin America, but hosted on countries' servers, incurring a maintenance and development cost), or bespoke solutions developed for governments (e.g., the MIS 10 in Indonesia, developed with the World Bank's support but also hosted on the country's servers incurring a maintenance and development cost).These bespoke solutions meet some of the same needs as SOURCE and provide more flexibility to governments in customization and reporting.For this purpose, SOURCE is being implemented in these governments where they use such bespoke solutions as a complementary solution (particularly to facilitate data collection and sharing among all users and IT tools), based on a robust application programming interface (API) 11 strategy, that aims to remove any overlap or need for double-data entry and reduces the challenges of change management as much as possible.

Supporting Infrastructure as an Asset Class
The multilateral SOURCE platform is led and funded by multilateral development banks to support the development of well-prepared infrastructure projects and government digitalization agenda.It provides a comprehensive project management system, which reinforces a high-quality gatekeeping process that can be adapted to regional, national, and subnational regulatory frameworks and embeds a compendium of best practices and guidance references from both the international community and the private sector.
Through sector-specific templates and adaptive timelines, SOURCE allows the capturing and structure of up to 2,000 data points for each project, from early definition to the infrastructure's end of life (see Figure 7).
Information thus collected and curated on SOURCE via a host of sanitizing and decision-making tools may be disclosed by public sponsors in a consistent and lawful manner, at the relevant stages of the projects.SOURCE thereby establishes a de facto universal data standard for infrastructure projects, facilitating the private sector's origination and due diligence processes (e.g., project readiness; risk allocation; revenue profile; and environmental, social, and governance).This combination of services, and the positioning of the platform across the full project cycle, makes SOURCE a unique offering, based on the following: • The multilateral governance of SOURCE, embodied by the consortium of multilateral development banks at the SOURCE Council, 12 which guarantees the independence and sustainability of the platform.• The strong involvement of the institutional and private sectors in the elaboration of SOURCE's data framework, ensuring all information important for decisions to bid are covered.A total of more than 7,000 comments were received from contributors from the contractors, investors, lenders, and advisors listed in Table 2, ensuring coverage of all relevant decisions for bids.
"SOURCE is not only making Infrastructure private debt investment immediately achievable, it also becomes an efficient long-term partner in our quest for welcoming additional developing countries in our investment scope."

Denis Protea Chief Investment Officer Private Debt Natixis | Investor Leadership Network
The relevance of SOURCE to facilitate the involvement of the private sector in the financing of infrastructure has been confirmed and highlighted by several representative groups of investors, including the Investor Leadership Network 13 and Fast-Infra 14 representing several trillions of dollars.

Relevance of SOURCE Post COVID-19
As an online project management system and global knowledge dissemination vehicle, SOURCE provides the following specific supports to strengthen the resilience of infrastructure and administration during global crises: • Leveraging global lessons learned: In critical situations, such as during COVID-19, infrastructure sectors must remain resilient, including energy, health care, water and wastewater systems, etc.).One lesson from the crisis is that there is a need to redefine the global approach (toward risk modeling, demand forecasts, sensitivity testing, etc.) to better design and strengthen the resilience of these key sectors.SOURCE has integrated such elements in its sector-specific templates (focusing first on these key sectors) and progressively integrating into SOURCE the guidelines and knowledge products that will emerge from this shared experience to scale up their dissemination.• Supporting continuity of operations in crisis: The global lockdowns in most countries during COVID will be a reminder of the importance and benefits of efficient online solutions, such as SOURCE, that facilitate collaboration and management of information remotely, without need for special settings or access to hard copies of key documents.• Assessing the efficiency and global impact of measures: SOURCE could be adapted and used to help harvest data from different initiatives and assess their effectiveness and socioeconomic impacts (e.g., on the number of permanent jobs created, fiscal revenues, positive externalities, etc.) in a transparent and standardized manner.With investor support, leveraging private investment could also be monitored and facilitated.• Scaling up infrastructure project structuring while addressing investors and private sector concern: SOURCE can help countries to scale up its project structuring processes and build a pipeline that is in line with private investors' needs.SOURCE can help countries in need of faster recovery and reconstruction of essential infrastructure, an example is Ukraine, that by implementing SOURCE will be able to build a consistency project pipeline.

13
The Investor Leadership Network was launched at the 2018 G7 to facilitate and accelerate collaboration by leading global investors with over $9 trillion in assets under management on key issues related to sustainability and long-term growth.

Conclusion
SOURCE is a unique and structured approach for infrastructure project development data across the project cycle.Through structured data points, government proponents can aspire to achieve their project's compliance with relevant policy, global development themes, private sector financing priorities, sustainability checklists, quality infrastructure principles, and others.
In addition, with a structured approach, bilateral funding agencies, multilateral development banks, and even the private sector can manage their operations and filter more effectively for their specific policy priorities and investment requirements, which in the end helps drive change and quality.
SOURCE allows the operationalization of the millions of dollars spent on developing best-practice knowledge products, guidance, and tools, by integrating them into the SOURCE workspace.This integration can help advocacy, knowledge, and funding to be linked, but it all requires structured data.The collection of structured data enables SOURCE to generate reports, benchmarks, and analytics at the project, country program, or global levels.It does this by automatically processing, assessing, and comparing relevant indicators of governance, socioeconomic impacts, financial sustainability, resilience, environmental, and social impacts.
The SOURCE templates are regularly enhanced, now having received more than 7,000 comments and inputs from international organizations as well as some of the world's leading developers, investors, financiers, legal advisers, and operators of infrastructure projects.SOURCE templates are categorized for eight stages of project development (from project definition to operations) and six general aspects of project development (governance, technical, economic, legal, environmental and social, and financial).
On 18 July 2020, the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Meeting highlighted the key role of the multilateral platform SOURCE in enabling "a systemic transition to the digitalization of infrastructure project development and data collection as part of advancing the work related to the QII principles." 15 This reflects the high achievement of the multilateral development banks in engaging in common activity with shared resources and joint leadership for members around the world.
In addition, on 21 May 2023, the G7 Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGII) recognized SOURCE 16 as an important tool to improve infrastructure projects' quality, standards, and governance."G7 also confirm the important role of other multilateral tools which improve quality, standards and governance of infrastructure projects such as SOURCE, G20

Timeline Lessons Learned
(i) Need for customization: The integration of SOURCE in the Philippines was the first integration initiative, and the needs assessment phase identified all new features now being deployed in all countries.The need for more customization (country-specific settings, custom timeline, adaptation of templates, etc.) to ensure proper implementation of the tool was confirmed during the needs assessment.(ii) Political commitment: The adoption of SOURCE requires an effort from all involved agencies to manage change in their respective processes.It is therefore key that the implementation of the platform is led by a well-identified agency, with the strong political support from a central government agency (e.g., presidency, ministry of finance).Such a material commitment is now compulsory for the integration process (submission of letter of interest).(iii) Integration timeline: Integration was delayed multiple times due to several revisions to the platform requested by the PPP Center throughout development.This was particularly critical as the assignment included the development of major features of SOURCE.Now that the need for additional functionalities has plateaued, the risk of delay has been reduced.In addition to mitigate this risk, Sustainable Infrastructure Foundation (SIF) has developed a more thorough needs assessment process that is validated by the government prior to starting development.The PPP Center "adopted SOURCE to bring transparency and accountability across all government agencies involved in the Philippines' project cycle, while benefiting from a robust and fully customized project information management system and industry's best practices."

Ferdinand Pecson
Executive Director of the PPP Center of the Philippines Timeline Lessons Learned (i) Importance of a well-defined institutional framework: One key feedback from the initial piloting phase was the need for PPP Development Agency of a legal or regulatory framework to enforce the use of the platform as part of the project cycle across implementing agencies to ensure effective and sustainable deployment of SOURCE.(ii) Potential of the project assessment tool in the framework of SOURCE's integration: In 2021, the Sustainable Infrastructure Foundation deployed a new feature on SOURCE, the "project assessment" module, allowing the gathering of a selection of data points from the templates into customizable categories and using it to derive an evaluation or a score (optional).While this module was initially designed to integrate internationally recognized standards or multilateral development banks' evaluation tools (the module was first used for the Asian Development Bank's GRIS evaluation method), it proved extremely relevant to facilitate the generation of bespoke reports, or implement national prioritization/ screening methodologies as part of the integration of SOURCE.This provides a strong incentive for users to upload data onto the platform.(iii) Importance of a centralized public window to increase visibility.The identified solution combing SOURCE with a public website, including macro information related to the PPP framework, provides a very complementary solution, for both the government and investors who have access to standardized, reliable, and up-to-date information in one single location.The integration of SOURCE took place around national elections, and the coordination of the integration activities with the Inter-American Development Bank's country office was a key factor in the successful implementation of SOURCE throughout this period, and ensuring continuity of political support for the initiative.(ii) National and subnational approach: The integration of SOURCE and definition of timeline were conducted in parallel at the national and subnational levels.Two piloting initiatives were launched together and fed on each other's results.The outcome of the integration process is therefore a framework adapted to the two levels of governance, for both public-private partnerships and traditional procurement.Good coordination with the central government for the deployment of SOURCE subnationally is key to its efficient and sustainable integration.(iii) Online integration.The assignment started with the pandemic of COVID-19 in the second quarter of 2020, and the Sustainable Infrastructure Foundation's (SIF) team could not travel for the entire period of the assignment.All workshops and discussions were therefore conducted at distance, via videoconferences and exchanges of emails.SIF developed new procedures to facilitate this new approach to take into consideration the fatigue that multiple videoconferences generate.The role of the local coordinator, based in Quito, was extremely important to maintain the momentum and conduct initial trainings in Spanish.

Integration of SOURCE in Ukraine Context
In 2019, Ukraine was identified as the first pilot country among European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) countries of operation, where the integration of SOURCE will take place at the national level.Ukraine has been going through systemic reforms to build a coherent and effective institutional and legal environment for implementation of public-private partnerships (PPPs) and overall improvement of public infrastructure delivery.The integration of SOURCE has been conducted in two phases: The first phase conducted the integration of SOURCE for PPP and concession projects only, and the second phase included connection of SOURCE with Ukraine's e-procurement platform and the rollout of the tool to all infrastructure projects.Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the SOURCE integration process has been paused.However, the SOURCE platform will play a key role in Ukraine's reconstruction plans.SOURCE will enable Ukrainian authorities to structure projects and road show its needs to multilateral development banks, donors, and investors.

Rationale for requesting SOURCE integration
• Need for an end-to-end IT platform (in complement to the e-procurement system in operation prior to the integration of SOURCE) to support the institutional reform conducted with the support from the EBRD • Digitalization of the full project cycle to reinforce standardization and transparency of processes • Capacity strengthening of implementing agencies, particularly at subnational level

Integration Features
• Policy workstream: (i) Review of primary and secondary legislation in Ukraine potentially conflicting with SOURCE implementation and recommendations on regulatory amendments and (ii) review of compliance of SOURCE templates and milestones with requirements of the Ukrainian legislation.• Process workstream: Identification and mapping of current processes within the project and development of a road map for optimization, based on the use of the SOURCE platform.SIF also assessed gender and inclusion entry points as well as inclusive procurement processes.

Timeline Lessons Learned
(i) Importance of data standardization: The integration of SOURCE in Ukraine has required the restructuring of SOURCE's templates for the platform to collect data on contractual management and procurement process.This was done to standardize data collection and align SOURCE with the Open Contracting Data Standard to facilitate the use of SOURCE's API by all platforms using the same standard (e-procurement platforms, CoST transparency dashboards, etc.).SOURCE has a wider role to play to extend the scope of the Open Contracting Data Standard to the whole project cycle, from definition to implementation.(ii) API strategy: The integration of SOURCE in Ukraine confirmed the relevance of the API strategy that had been decided with the SOURCE Council.Rather than trying to capture all the digital needs from governments throughout the project cycle into SOURCE, the most efficient approach proved to maintain the scope of SOURCE's services unchanged and develop a comprehensive IT system by connecting SOURCE to third-party applications (either preexisting or developed as part of the integration) via SOURCE's API.(iii) Importance of policy approach: As part of the integration in Ukraine, the EBRD supported a wider legal reform that allowed including the use of SOURCE in the regulation.This proved a key factor in successful integration and was replicated in other countries."SOURCE is a customizable, secure web application for DMC (developing member country) project management, planning, processing, assessment, and overall preparation.Its project management functions include project pipelines, documents, portfolio management, and monitoring dashboards for project preparation, all of which can be tailored to a DMC's regulatory regime and project approval processes.SOURCE project preparation templates provide guidance on managing projects even where the private sector is involved.The SOURCE templates are in accordance with global standards like the (International Finance Corporation) performance standards on environment, social, and governance, the Global Infrastructure Facility Project Preparation Readiness Assessment, and the Association of Project Managers Group PPP Certification Guide's gateway process.The platform also integrates internationally recognized knowledge products such as the (International Monetary Fund) and the World Bank PPP Fiscal Risk Assessment Model that analyzes fiscal risks of infrastructure projects, the Global Infrastructure Hub PPP risk allocation tool, and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Principles for Positive Impact Finance.

Feedback
SOURCE was cited in the G20's InfraTech agenda as a means for countries to enable a systemic transition to the digitalization of infrastructure project preparation and data collection in relation to QII principles.SOURCE helps governments improve investment decisions over a project's life-cycle, enhance value for money, and promote quality infrastructure investments to achieve better economic, social, and environmental outcomes.As a multilateral and online platform, SOURCE holds great potential to digitize and disseminate ADB tools and diagnostic instruments related to infrastructure governance and sustainability, such as the Climate Risk Management Framework, Procurement Risk Assessment, and Value for Money Guidance for Procurement, among others (Table 2).This will enable ADB to expand its knowledge sharing activities and increase DMC access by having tools and best practices available in one place along with knowledge products from other multilaterals."(p.24) https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/715581/supporting-quality-infrastructure-asia.pdf Quality and sustainable infrastructure investments are needed to rebuild smartly and create a more resilient, inclusive, and equitable world.Digital transformation has become an urgent need for governments.This publication presents the SOURCE platform, a digital transformation tool that is financed and led by multilateral development banks.SOURCE is a key tool for governments to prepare well-developed projects in alignment with international standards such as the G20 Principles for Quality Infrastructure Investment.SOURCE can be integral to capacity building for best practices in project management, for building infrastructure databases for measuring achievements, and for raising bankability and attracting private sector financing of projects contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement.

About the Asian Development Bank
ADB is committed to achieving a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty.Established in 1966, it is owned by 68 members -49 from the region.Its main instruments for helping its developing member countries are policy dialogue, loans, equity investments, guarantees, grants, and technical assistance.

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Figure 1: Integration Process

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Figure 2: Key Milestones of SOURCE's Development

Figure 3 :
Figure 3: Outreach Status of SOURCE in 2023

Figure 4 :
Figure 4: Overview of MDB Support across the Infrastructure Investment Cycle

FAST
To be integrated into the next version of templates (2023) ADB = Asian Development Bank, CP3P = Certified Public-Private Partnerships Professional, FAST-Infra = Finance to Accelerate the Sustainable Transition -Infrastructure, G20 = Group of Twenty, GRIS = green, resilient, inclusive, and sustainable, PPP = publicprivate partnership, QII = Quality Infrastructure Investment, SDG = Sustainable Development Goal, UN = United Nations, UNECE = United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, UNCITRAL = United Nations Commission on International Trade Law.

Figure 5 :
Figure 5: SDG Impact Dashboard in SOURCE The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were adopted by all United Nations Member States in , as part of the Agenda for Sustainable Development.It is a call to urgent action by all countries within the framework of a global partnership.Link: https://sdgs.un.org/goals.The graphics below present the sum of the targeted positive impacts related to SDGs already defined in the Stage of your project pipeline.

Figure
Figure 6: SOURCE Value Proposition and Market Positioning Agency is leading the integration of SOURCE "to provide better standardization and predictability of public-private partnership processes as part of the enforcement of Uzbekistan's new PPP law."Importance of multilateral development bank coordination: one of the best project management tools I have used to prepare well-structured projects in PPP, concessions and standard procurement."TarasBoichukHead of SPILNO PPP Office Ukraine G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors G20 Riyadh InfraTech Agenda, 2020."Weendorse the G20 Riyadh InfraTech Agenda, which promotes the use of technology in infrastructure, with the aim of improving investment decisions over the lifecycle, enhancing value for money of infrastructure projects, and promoting quality infrastructure investments for the delivery of better social, economic and environmental outcomes.""The multilateral platform SOURCE, to enable a systemic transition to the digitalization of infrastructure project preparation and data collection as part of advancing the work related to the QII principles."(p.7) https://cdn.gihub.org/umbraco/media/3008/g20-riyadh-infratech-agenda.pdfFrench Presidency, Declaration of the Summit on the Financing of African Economies, Paris, 2021: "Supporting capacity development for planning and preparation of key infrastructure projects and foster the emergence of bankable projects, through promoting the deployment of the multilateral platform SOURCE for sustainable infrastructure project preparation, jointly led and funded by multilateral development banks."(p.8) https://www.elysee.fr/index.php/en/emmanuel-macron/2021/05/18/summit-on-the-financing-ofafrican-economies-1Asian Development Bank, Supporting Quality Infrastructure in Developing Asia, July 2021.
Uzbekistan • Jeanine Corvetto, resident advisor, Ministry of Economy and Finance Ecuador, Government Debt and Infrastructure Finance, Office of Technical Assistance, US Department of the Treasury • Marc Tkach, director, Infrastructure and Integrated Program Management, Millennium Challenge Corporation • Silvia Brugger, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) coordinator climate governance, EUROCLIMA+ Program • Christian Déseglise, managing director, Head of Sustainable Finance and Investments, Global Banking and Markets, Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation • Denis Prouteau, chief investment officer, Private Debt, Natixis Investment Managers • Christian Yoka, regional director-Eastern Africa, Agence Française de Développement • Inga Beie, Head of Project Leading Urban Climate Action, GIZ • Taras Boichuk, head of office, SPILNO Public-Private Partnership Project Management Office, Ministry of Infrastructure of Ukraine • Feroisa Francisca T. Concordia, director, Public-Private Partnership Center, Philippines Finally, the document was reviewed and endorsed by all members from the SOURCE Council, including Matthew Jordan Tank, director, Sustainable Infrastructure Policy & Project Preparation at European Bank for Reconstruction and Development; Pedro de Lima, permanent representative of the European Investment Bank Group in the United States, European Investment Bank; Gaston Astesiano, public-private partnerships team leader at Inter-American Development Bank; and Imad Fakhouri, global director, Infrastructure Finance, Public-Private Partnerships and Guarantees Global Practice, World Bank Group.
• Syed Uddin, public-private partnership policy advisor, Ministry of Finance and Public-Private Partnership Development Agency, Since 2014, SOURCE has been guided and funded by multilateral development banks and Project Preparation Facilities.In 2021, the cumulative contributions from multilateral development banks were around $5.7 million (ADB $1.4 million).Phase 2: Evolution into a Fully Operational Tool and Start of the Integration Strategy Since 2019, the strategic and financial management of SOURCE has been under the supervision of the SOURCE Council composed of representatives from major multilateral development banks including ADB, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the European Investment Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, International Finance Cooperation, and the World Bank Group.The African Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank are observers.The SOURCE Council enjoys the following powers:

Table 1 :
Tools, Guidance, and Best Practices Embedded into SOURCE Figure 7: Typical Distribution of Data Points Collected in SOURCE for One Project

Table 2 :
Private Contributors to SOURCE Templates Compendium of Quality Infrastructure Investment Indicators, and the Debt Management and Financial Analysis System (DMFAS)," it is read on the communiqué.Training of 20+ staff in 7 government agencies, registration of all identified organizations and users on platform, and preparation and update of complete and bespoke user guide (200+ pages).
• IT workstream: Restructuring of the entire SOURCE data structure to enable the alignment of SOURCE API with Open Contracting Data Standard to facilitate interconnectivity with Ukraine's e-procurement platform.