Charting the Path Forward: AIIB President Zou Jiayi on Sustainable Infrastructure in Asia and Beyond

On the Road: What President Zou Heard When Zou Jiayi assumed the presidency of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank in January 2026, she made an unusual choice for a leader of a major multilateral institution: before setting strategy, she went to listen. Over the following months, she visited 15 member economies across Asia, meeting heads of states, finance ministers and a wide range of partners and clients. She also saw firsthand the impact of AIIB’s work, riding rapid transit systems and walking hospital wards equipped with support from the bank. The scale of the mission reflects the scale of what is at stake. "The purpose was simple: listen," Zou says. "I wanted to hear directly from our members about their development priorities, and to see how AIIB-financed projects are working on the ground." Two things came through clearly. The first was deep appreciation for AIIB's track record across its first decade. The second was more ambitious: a strong and consistent call to scale up, to do more, faster and more innovatively, as global development challenges intensify. What moved her most, she says, was the human dimension of the projects she visited. In Indonesia, she visited two AIIB-supported hospitals where upgraded facilities are enabling earlier diagnosis and more effective treatment for patients who previously lacked access to specialist care. In India, she rode the Delhi-Meerut Regional Rapid Transit System, the country's first high-speed suburban railway. On board, she spoke with a university student who told her the new line was cutting her daily commute by more than an hour. "From these projects, we can see how infrastructure connects people to opportunities," Zou says. It is a phrase that captures both what she found on the road and what she intends to build on. Integrity, Innovation, Impact: From Words to Action The listening tour not only confirmed what AIIB was already doing well, it strengthened the case for doing more and doing it innovatively. "What we heard inspired and informed us in shaping our goal for the next few years," Zou says. "Our goal will be scaling up development impact with innovation and integrity." On impact, Zou is clear that volume alone is not the measure. AIIB aims to broadly double its annual financing volume by 2030, but the ambition runs deeper than a financing target. "Development impact will be measured by both quantity and quality," she says. "In the end, the impact is the difference we make in people's lives." It is a conviction she brings back directly from the road. On innovation, AIIB is moving closer to clients and expanding the financial tools it uses, including new instruments to attract private capital and local currency financing that works in the same currency communities actually use. "We need to innovate our financing instruments along with the evolving development challenges," she says. On integrity, commitment extends beyond zero corruption to something more foundational. "It means upholding multilateralism, staying true to our mandate to support infrastructure and regional cooperation, and adopting the highest standards of operational policy," Zou says. "Integrity is the soul of our institution." Why Multilateralism Still Matters In a fractured world, with trade tensions and contested global governance, the case for multilateralism needs making. Zou's answer is direct. "In a turbulent world today, multilateralism matters more than ever," she says. "Multilateralism is not about whether countries have disagreements. It is about how we choose to find solutions." With public finances under pressure and uncertainty rising, multilateral development banks play a stabilizing role, providing reliable long-term capital, aligning investment around development goals and supporting economies absorbing the spillover effects of geopolitical tension. AIIB's 111-member structure, spanning Europe, the Gulf, Central Asia and the Asia-Pacific, is itself an expression of this model, rooted in what Zou describes as open regionalism: focused on Asia but explicitly connected to the rest of the world. "We do have differences," she says, "but we choose to cooperate." That cooperative instinct was on display in Washington in April, where Zou joined the heads of other major multilateral development banks to agree on deeper coordination across emergency financing, water resource management and private capital mobilisation. AIIB's latest flagship research report, Asian Infrastructure Financing: Where Water Flows, makes the same argument, that infrastructure is most effective when systems are connected, and that the world needs not only more development but more interconnected development. This emphasis on interconnected systems also underscores the need for coordinated responses when shocks reverberate across borders and sectors. In response to the challenges stemming from the conflict in the Middle East, the bank launched the Energy, Food Security and Economic Resilience Facility to support members whose development prospects may be adversely affected, helping them strengthen resilience against energy and food supply disruptions as well as broader economic shocks. The Road Ahead For Zou, the true success of AIIB is measured on the ground. A satellite project AIIB supported in Indonesia has connected 45 million people across almost 100,000 schools and health centres. A rural sanitation programme in Egypt has improved water services for nearly 1 million people. "Success means consistently delivering development impact on the ground," Zou says. "It requires more than finance alone." Her closing conviction is both personal and institutional. "People often say a better world is possible," she says. "My belief is that a better world can be built. We are builders. We build infrastructure, we build connections, we build trust. Through building, we make the world a better place to live." After months of listening, AIIB is ready to accelerate. The groundwork is laid, the priorities are clear, and the bank is moving. This is not the conclusion of a listening tour. It is the start of a new chapter. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) has 111 members from six continents, financing 381 projects across 42 economies amounting to €67 billion. AIIB is AAA-rated by all major international credit rating agencies.