Oil Price Decline Provides Support to Emerging Market Infrastructure Development

Oil rich Nigeria and its currency, the naira, has been among the hardest hit by the downturn in the energy prices, and the threat of political instability, in particular the activities of radical Islamist group Boko Haram, increased dramatically in 2014. However, "as Africa's most populous country, half of the population under the age of 25, Nigeria has a huge appetite to build infrastructure," Broby said, "and if you are going to get involved in infrastructure in emerging markets, it's best to partner with the government. The fund will bring much needed private capital to Nigeria, as well as best practice and governance to local investors."

And while an unexpected occurrence like an oil price correction can certainly provide a short-term window of opportunity, what's going to matter the most in the end for sustained infrastructure development is proper policy, something that quite a number of emerging market nations are now on top of.

"A huge number of emerging market countries are under new management and that is good from stability standpoint," Visse said. "India, for instance, has a very pro-infrastructure leadership, as do Indonesia and the Philippines. All those places are very keen on understanding the need for long-term infrastructure investment and they are setting up favorable groundwork for meaningful public/private partnerships."

Of course, India still has a huge bureaucracy and is synonymous with massive amounts of red tape. But the government of Narendra Modi appears to want to change that reputation, Visse said, and to facilitate the launch and completion of infrastructure projects. In Indonesia, the government is also on an anti-corruption drive, and the same goes for China, "so the more that can be done to make investing more amenable and to increase transparency, the more meaningful participation there can be in infrastructure financing," Visse said.