Chile Water Infrastructure Investment Plan (2020-2050)

Designed implementation strategy and financing roadmap to enable transformational, bankable water infrastructure pipelines, strengthening public-private collaboration and long-term investment planning.

The challenge

Chile’s water challenges span extreme aridity in the north to water-abundant regions in the south. Climate change, rising demand, technological disruption, and increasing uncertainty are placing growing pressure on conventional planning approaches.

Chile’s government created the National Water Infrastructure Investment Plan 2020-2050 to respond to these pressures, but implementation demanded more than identifying projects. It required institutional, financial, and innovation mechanisms capable of enabling continuous system adaptation over three decades.

Our contribution

Altamira supported the Ministry of Public Works and the Inter-American Development Bank in developing an implementation roadmap addressing a central question: how can a national water infrastructure strategy remain adaptive, innovative, and investable over the next three decades under conditions of deep uncertainty?

The engagement designed public-private-academic collaboration mechanisms, innovation governance structures, strategic procurement approaches, blended finance and private-sector participation strategies, mechanisms for scaling emerging technologies, and governance arrangements for adaptive water infrastructure planning, together with institutional models supporting continuous learning and decision-making across river basins and regions.

Key areas of work

Adaptive infrastructure planning

Strengthened long-term investment planning under climate uncertainty through improved modelling, scenario analysis, and adaptive decision-making.

Innovation ecosystem design

Connected government agencies, universities, innovators, investors, and operators to accelerate the identification, testing, and scaling of new water technologies and management approaches.

Blended finance and private sector participation

Expanded private capital and expertise beyond traditional concession models, enabling greater participation in innovation development, infrastructure delivery, and long-term water resilience investments.

Governance and institutional coordination

Strengthened coordination among national, regional, basin-level, public, and private actors in water infrastructure planning and implementation.

Strategic outcomes

The roadmap centred on six strategic pillars: integrated portfolio-based infrastructure planning, enhanced hydro-economic planning and modelling capabilities, national water innovation networks, mechanisms for scaling innovative solutions, public-private collaboration and blended finance models, and basin-level governance and coordination structures.

These recommendations aimed to transition Chile from static planning toward a continuously evolving system that responds to climate, technological, economic, and social change.