Meeting the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for universal water and electricity access will cost $3.5 trillion (£2.7tn) by 2030.

That’s according to new research from the G20 Global Infrastructure Hub, which suggests a rising population and increasing urbanisation will mean a total infrastructure investment of $97 trillion (£74.3tn) will be required.

The organisation suggests an estimated 19% of this will be unfunded if current spending trends continue and warns investments in the energy and water sectors are likely to fall substantially short of the $236 billion (£180.8bn) required.

The research suggests investment is currently unbalanced – in the last four years, almost half of all infrastructure spending in Europe came from the UK, France, Russia and Germany.

Closing the total infrastructure investment gap will require annual investment to increase from the current level of 3% of global GDP to 3.5%.

Meeting the water and electricity access SDGs will require this to increase further, rising to 3.7% between now and 2030.

Global Infrastructure Hub CEO, Chris Heathcote, said: “We believe this information will be key to governments and indeed those organisations that fund, plan and build infrastructure projects into the future – and providing sustainable cities with social and economic benefits for all.”