Japan formulated its first infrastructure export strategy in 2010. However, the outputs and effects of that strategy and its successive revisions over the preceding decade have not yet been extensively reviewed. Although infrastructure came to the fore of the international agenda over the past decade, existing research has mostly discussed individual infrastructure projects and accompanying signalling, sloganeering, and strategic communications in the geopolitical and geo-economic context. This paper therefore aims to make an empirical and interpretive contribution to existing scholarship by comprehensively reviewing Japan’s infrastructure exports in 2010–19 and elucidating further its oft-disregarded commercial and developmental aspects. To do so, this article focuses on Official Development Assistance (ODA) loan projects, which count among the largest items of Japan’s infrastructure exports. We introduce and analyse a previously unexamined dataset on infrastructure-related ODA loan projects and contract awards, while also showcasing the avoidance of zero-sum-game approaches in Japan’s related strategy. We then discuss whether and how the changes of Japanese infrastructure export strategy affected the performance of Japan’s infrastructure export through the ODA loan projects as well as Japan’s relationship with the recipient countries, especially in the various parts of the Indo-Pacific region, such as Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Africa.

Since 2015, when the United Nations (UN) established the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for the period 2015–2030, global attention has turned to sustainable development. However, few studies have focused on how countries can achieve sustainable development using comprehensive perspectives and quantitative approaches. In response to this gap, the current study adopts the Inclusive Wealth Index (IWI), which comprehensively evaluates the values of produced, natural, and human capitals that clearly contribute to the sustainable development of nations. By utilizing the IWI, this research carefully explores whether developing countries in the ASEAN region developed in a sustainable way during the period 1990 to 2014. We show that ASEAN countries with rich natural resources had difficulty developing sustainably. In contrast, other countries were able to overcome obstacles to sustainable development by enhancing produced capital, which was partly reflected in their relatively high GDP. To conserve wealth for the future generations, the management of capital resources in a way that reflects regional heterogeneity is key to achieving the SDGs in the ASEAN region.

In recent years, the concept of sustainable infrastructure has become a key concern for infrastructure development. However, there has been little comprehensive research on the enabling factors for sustainable infrastructure development. To address these knowledge gaps, this research conducted a systematic literature review of the enabling factors, with a specific focus on finance and governance, to provide new insights for development practitioners and academic scholars. The research first reviewed the characteristics of sustainable infrastructure, identifying several types of definitions. Subsequently, the research identified multiple finance arrangements and governance characteristics that have been applied to sustainable infrastructure. We confirmed that public-private partnerships (PPPs) and multilateral development banks (MDBs) play central and critical roles in leading and including other finance arrangements and governance characteristics of sustainable infrastructure development. In addition, the review suggests there are various governance modes combining horizontal process management with vertical project management for realizing sustainable infrastructure development.

In Indonesia, public–private partnerships (PPPs) schemes have been attracting a lot of attention to meet the huge demand for infrastructure developments. However, their applications are still limited and the financial close of a project tends to be behind the planned schedule. This research therefore aims to investigate the critical success factors (CSFs) causing fast/slow progress in the processes toward the financial close of PPPs toll road projects in Indonesia. The results revealed that, to realize smoother delivery of PPPs toll road projects in Indonesia to the financial close in the future, it is important to improve coordination among the related stakeholders especially between the central and local governments, though the other CSFs are currently well developed. The research also found an issue that should be addressed from a sustainability viewpoint, namely that the government highly depends on state-owned companies (SOEs) for a timely financial close of PPPs toll road projects.

In recent years, the concept of sustainable infrastructure has gained popularity and is widely utilized and promoted by the international development community. However, implementation of sustainable infrastructure remains a challenge due to various enabling and disabling factors particularly related to financial arrangements and governance modes. This paper aims to fill the research gap in this area and investigate the factors that enable implementation of sustainable infrastructure, with a focus on the financial and governance aspects. To do so, the paper uses real urban railway projects in Manila, the Philippines as case studies for comparative analysis. The results suggest that from the finance and governance perspectives, public–private partnerships (PPPs) and official development assistance (ODA) finance are effective tools for implementing sustainable infrastructure, with some conditions, namely a mixture of vertical project management and horizontal process management, and the project environments having a positive effect on the trust building and collaboration among the stakeholders.

Urban railway systems are critical for the daily lives of citizens in cities. Considering that urban railways are a core infrastructure, it is important for urban and railway practitioners to operate and maintain urban railway systems effectively and to maximize user satisfaction. However, despite the importance of this topic, research on the factors that contribute to high levels of railway user satisfaction in the context of Southeast Asian developing countries remains limited. To address this gap, this study conducted an exploratory case study using the Jakarta Mass Rapid Transit (MRT). This study collected 406 valid responses regarding Jakarta MRT user satisfaction through a face-to-face questionnaire survey and analyzed them using regression analysis, fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), and text-mining techniques, which have seldom been applied in previous research on factors influencing railway user satisfaction. The results indicate that high levels of satisfaction with railway fares and social considerations—particularly the combination of both—may be the simplest configuration associated with higher overall user satisfaction, while various other combinations of satisfaction dimensions could also lead to elevated satisfaction. The results also suggest that all dimensions may serve as necessary and/or sufficient conditions for high satisfaction, implying the importance of considering all dimensions. These findings are specific to this case study and may differ depending on the socio-cultural contexts. To advance the understanding of satisfaction factors, further comparative research on the Jakarta MRT and rail systems in other countries is warranted.