Manish Kothari, Sheladia president and CEO, spoke at the World Bank’s recent small island development states event in Washington DC.
Manish Kothari, Sheladia president and CEO and also a member of the board at international engineering federation FIDIC, spoke as a panellist during a session on Resilient Connectivity in Small Island Developing States (SIDS) at the World Bank’s Transforming Transportation Event on 12 March 2025 in Washington DC.
Kothari addressed some of the key strategies for ensuring that infrastructure in SIDS is both resilient and sustainable in the face of climate change and other long-term challenges. He also promoted the use of FIDIC contract documents and American Society of Civil Engineers standards as offering international best practices in infrastructure design, contract administration and risk management.
He also noted that the Playbook for Nature Positive Infrastructure Development, recently developed by FIDIC in partnership with WWF, provides for resilience from an environmental perspective.
The panellists (pictured above, from left to right in the order listed below) included moderator Benjamin Welle, director, integrated transport and innovation, WRI Ross Center for Sustainable Cities, Jan Hoffmann, global lead maritime transport and ports, World Bank, Manish Kothari, FIDIC board member and president and CEO, Sheladia Associates, Bishop Juan A. Edghill, minister at the Ministry of Public Works, Guyana, Lenita Joseph, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Infrastructure, Ports, Transport, Physical Development and Urban Renewal, Saint Lucia and Salaseini Daunabuna, permanent secretary for tourism and civil aviation, Fiji.
