What 40 years of experience in international infrastructure development has taught me

Infrastructure development is often seen as a technical profession.

In reality, the many important skills may lie outside engineering.

Over more than 40 years working as a Chartered Civil Engineer in international infrastructure, much of it in low-income and fragile contexts, I have learned that successful projects depend as much on understanding institutions and communities as on technical design.

If you listen to the Engineers Against Poverty (EAP) podcast and/or read these blogs you will learn a little about how I studied and trained as an engineer, gained professional experience and worked in a number of different contexts and countries – ultimately arriving at an unforeseen destination as Head of Profession for Infrastructure in then the DFID, later the FCDO. It is that role which solidified in me the importance of interdisciplinary learning and working, which this blog is about.

I was influenced by a 1996 paper by Peter Kolsky and Andrew Cotton, which appeared as a chapter in the book Educating For Real: The Training of Professionals for Development Practice. In it, the authors compare the teaching of medical students to that of engineers, proposing that ‘a well-trained engineer needs a sound knowledge of his [sic] patient – society’. They go on to stress the need for multi-disciplinarity, a ‘Southern’ perspective, problems arising from over-specialisation, and (for water and sanitation engineers) the need to understand issues of technology, management and institutions, health, social development, finance and economics.

Learning across professional boundaries

In the EAP podcast, I refer to this quote, often misattributed to Confucius:

I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand.

I am inclined to go along with the sentiment, for really, it is about the importance of experiential learning. If you learn by doing, you tend to learn well, and this is key to being effective in any role.

Having arrived at DFID I found myself working with 12 other heads of profession, covering climate and the environment, humanitarian work, health, education, evaluation, statistics, governance, conflict, economics, social development, private sector development and livelihoods. We were 13 relatively diverse individuals, responsible for the professional development of our respective cadres of practitioners, advisers and experts (titles changed over the years) as well as other so-called ‘generalists’ (programme managers, procurement colleagues, etc).

A key lesson I take from that time was the emphasis a colleague placed on inter-disciplinary working – not just multi-disciplinary working, which can still keep us in multiple silos, but ‘inter’ – genuinely listening, sharing and learning across professional boundaries, understanding and jargon.

If I look back at that 1996 Kolsky and Cotton chapter, and my career since then, I realise I have been on an interdisciplinary, experiential journey. This is captured in a product for which the Heads of Profession Group can take some credit ‘Systems Thinking and Practice: K4D Knowledge, Evidence and Learning for Development’.

Building expertise across sectors

I joined the Board of Trustees of EAP in June 2023, having known them well for many years in my roles as an Infrastructure Adviser in DFID. Since then I’ve written the blogs and filmed the podcast published on 6th April on themes including the SDGs, working with governments, local communities, and the critical link between engineering and ending poverty. We’ve also reflected on evolving challenges in the sector, the power and value of learning from mistakes, and learning from others.

And now I am supporting them in developing an Infrastructure Professional Development Toolkit – launched on 27th March 2026. This resource is designed to support the professional development of practitioners and members of the Nature, Infrastructure, Climate and Energy community in FCDO but is available for anyone to use. It offers an interactive and self-led learning approach to building expertise across sectors and stakeholders, centred around five themes, from driving economic growth to better environment and governance. The toolkit considers key questions like: ‘What is infrastructure development primarily aiming to achieve? Who is it for? As well as career development, it can also be used to support monitoring, evaluation and learning.

The toolkit reflects the issues raised in this piece as well as some of my experiences and other lessons learned. It also includes new ways of learning and working, including using Artificial Intelligence. On this, I would also recommend the 2015 book The Future of the Professions: How technology will transform the work of human experts.