A good infrastructure forms the backbone for the development of any country. Over the past two decades, Nepal has made good progress in creating this development infrastructure. Road lengths have increased to 100 thousand Km, Energy production has increased by nearly threefold with an installed capacity of nearly 1300 MW as of mobile phone and internet penetration levels are excessively high. Access to drinking water supply and basic sanitation has crossed the 90 percent mark. But, despite a large number of investments in infrastructure development, the quality of infrastructure provided and the services derived therefrom, remains below desired levels.

The Government of Nepal has set a target to graduate from Least Developed Country status to developing country status by 2022 and to a Medium Level income country with near-zero poverty level by 2030. These aspirations require that investment in infrastructure will significantly rise in the days to come. The need to invest in quality infrastructure to achieve these targets and to contribute to the nation’s economy cannot be undermined but, the political will to drive this surge in investments both in terms of their choice and quality are not seen coming forward. The role of quality infrastructure in the overall development and their impact on social and environmental betterment are still not fully understood and articulated at the political and decision-making levels. The country needs further open and informed debate regarding the underlying issues for achieving the intended growth in quality of life and the nation's overall economic standing and the strong correlation of these attributes with the quality of infrastructure the nation provides.

In this background Center for Democratic Engineers’ (CDEN), has planned to organize a National Level conference in Nepal to support this debate, which will contribute to the overall awareness of the need for quality infrastructure in the country. The main purpose of the conference is to provide a forum to articulate these issues and to share the best practices in infrastructure development and financing management within and outside the country, develop and refine approaches and models applicable for Nepal including for better planning and implementation. Through this conference, CDEN attempts to interface between political and technical aspects of infrastructure development discourse.