Climate-Resilient Infrastructure as a Public Good: Welfare, Risk, and Climate Smart Growth

.Climate change has emerged as a significant global crisis, with the frequency and intensity of climate-induced disasters rising sharply and imposing disproportion-ate costs on developing economies and small island states. This article examines the role of climate-resilient infrastructure as a key aspect of climate-smart growth, integrating mitigation, adaptation, and long-term development objectives. It frames climate-resilient infrastructure not merely as an engineering solution, but as a public good that generates significant positive externalities, reduces systemic macroeconomic risk, and delivers welfare gains that exceed private financial re-turns. Furthermore, the study also highlights substantial cross-country heteroge-neity in resilience outcomes, driven by differences in geographic exposure, eco-nomic capacity, institutional quality, and political economy constraints. The pa-per argues for a welfare-based approach to infrastructure prioritization that ac-counts for service disruptions, distributional impacts, and fiscal risk, rather than asset values alone. It further outlines policy and financing strategies to bridge the gap between social and private returns, including public investment, concessional finance, blended instruments, and nature-based solutions. Heavy premise is placed on strengthening climate-resilient infrastructure not only for safeguarding lives and livelihoods, but also for enabling inclusive, sustainable, and cli-mate-smart economic growth