YAVA Monthly Report | January 2026: Executing Secure Infrastructure in a Fragmented World

Jan 30
3 min read

From Davos to India Energy Week, global infrastructure leaders are converging on a shared reality: capital is available, but execution capability determines outcomes

The full January 2026 YAVA Monthly Report is available to download now

January 2026 marked a period of intensified global engagement for YAVA, as infrastructure resilience, security, and execution capacity moved firmly to the centre of international economic and political debate.

Across the month, YAVA participated in critical forums including the World Economic Forum in Davos and India Energy Week, engaging directly with policymakers, operators, and industry leaders navigating heightened geopolitical risk, accelerating cyber threats, and mounting delivery constraints.

Throughout these engagements, a consistent reality emerged: while capital availability and policy alignment are improving, the ability to translate ambition into operational infrastructure remains uneven. Resilience, security, and execution are no longer abstract priorities, but practical requirements shaping investment outcomes, national capability, and long-term performance.

YAVA’s work during this period focused on operating at this intersection; assessing on-the-ground conditions, engaging early with decision-makers, and supporting delivery in complex, high-risk, and resource-constrained environments where execution discipline determines success.

Global Infrastructure at a Crossroads

Discussions at the World Economic Forum in Davos underscored a growing consensus: critical infrastructure has become a frontline issue in economic security and geopolitical stability. Cyber risk, supply chain concentration, and political fragmentation, as highlighted in the report, are no longer episodic shocks, but structural features of the global system.

Confidence in national preparedness is under strain, and infrastructure resilience is increasingly judged by the ability to withstand sustained disruption rather than recover from isolated incidents. The message from Davos was clear: resilience must be accumulated deliberately through long-term coordination, operational integration, and institutional trust.

Contrasting political approaches at Davos highlight a shared shift toward economic sovereignty and infrastructure resilience as instruments of national power

From Ambition to Delivery: Insights from India Energy Week

At India Energy Week, YAVA held detailed discussions with senior leaders from India’s energy ecosystem and global partners focused on overseas expansion and regional delivery challenges. While policy support and financing mechanisms continue to strengthen, execution capacity remains the primary constraint.

Conversations centred on structured market access, durable partnerships, and the operational realities of delivering energy infrastructure in high-need regions such as the Middle East and East Africa. Across stakeholders, the same issue surfaced repeatedly: delivery failure driven by poor integration, vendor misalignment, and insufficient local execution remains a limiting factor despite growing capital availability.

Sumit Dubey, Partner and Asia Specialist at YAVA, attended India Energy Week

The Execution Gap: Risk, Planning, and Performance

Data continues to reinforce these concerns. Large-scale infrastructure projects frequently exceed budgets and miss delivery timelines, eroding returns and undermining confidence. These outcomes are rarely driven by lack of ambition or funding, but by weaknesses in early-stage planning, governance, and operational alignment.

Embedding execution expertise earlier in the project lifecycle, particularly during pre-construction and mobilisation, is increasingly recognised as a critical lever for reducing risk, accelerating delivery, and strengthening resilience during implementation.

Ports, Telecom, and Critical Networks Under Pressure

The report also places a spotlight on telecom infrastructure, where sovereignty, security, and execution risk are converging rapidly. Policymakers and operators are reassessing network architectures, vendor exposure, and deployment models in response to rising geopolitical tension and regulatory enforcement.

While technical threats remain significant, internal delivery challenges, including fragmented governance, workforce constraints, and integration complexity, are now among the most pressing risks facing telecom operators. In this environment, execution capability and operational coordination are becoming as critical as technology choice in determining network resilience.

Beyond energy and telecoms, the report examines how these dynamics are playing out across ports, airports, data centres, and transport systems. These assets are facing simultaneous physical, digital, and geopolitical stress, requiring infrastructure that can operate under pressure rather than optimise solely for efficiency.

Across sectors, resilience is emerging as an operational posture; one that blends technology, workforce capability, governance, and real-time decision-making into a coherent delivery model.

Critical infrastructure, including ports, is now a frontline concern for national security, with policymakers and operators reassessing networks, suppliers, and deployment models in response to rising geopolitical risk

From Strategy to Execution

The report concludes by looking ahead to the models and partnerships required to deliver infrastructure at scale in this environment. Execution discipline, embedded local capability, and cross-border coordination are no longer secondary considerations; they are defining differentiators.

As infrastructure becomes an expression of economic security and national resilience, those able to translate strategy into delivery will set the pace. YAVA remains focused on operating at this fault line, supporting partners as ambition meets execution in complex global markets.

The full January 2026 YAVA Monthly Report is available to download below.