The World Bank is aiming to do at least one pilot project through the Global Infrastructure Facility by the end of the year.

The Global Infrastructure Facility is aimed at channelling funds from member nations and the private sector into projects the World Bank hopes will boost jobs and growth in developing countries.

World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim told the Spring Meetings 2014 closing press conference that the bank got a great boost for the Global Infrastructure Facility at the Spring Meetings and said the G20 and the Development Committee are anxious for the bank to take it forward.

“So, we are going to move forward, and our plan is to at least do one pilot project before the end of this year. So, the idea is that this will be a platform, and while we’ll be hosting the platform, the participation will come from all the multilateral development banks, and also individual countries, the private sector,” he said.

Kim said that what the World Bank is trying to do is to take projects in developing countries which are not currently bankable because of the lack of an organised approach to project preparation and make them bankable. “And once we do that, we will recruit investors from both the public and the private sector, and work to illustrate that this is a viable and potentially an extremely important way of trying to meet the enormous demand for infrastructure today, especially in the developing world,” he said.