About

With about 85 percent of world population residing in the developing world and transition economies, and with 67 percent of that population below age 35, the need for infrastructure development to underpin long-term growth is an issue of national priority for virtually all of these countries. Service provision currently falls far short of what is needed: some 1.6 billion people have no power, 1.2 billion people lack access to safe and potable drinking water, and 2.4 billion are affected by inadequate sanitation and the diseases it spreads. Yet infrastructure’s share of many developing countries’ investment budgets is shrinking; donor support is below past levels, and private investment in infrastructure in developing countries is also declining.

In the last decade, the number of developed and developing countries that use the public private partnerships (PPPs) as the preferred financing scheme for infrastructure projects has been increased significantly. There is a wide spectrum of reason as to why governments are seeking to such partnerships. However, the main goal is to achieve Value for Money (VfM) and to deliver better quality of services for the same amount spent by the public sector. A second but not less important set of reasons is the desire to provide increased infrastructure provision and services within imposed budgetary constraints by utilizing private sources of finance via off balance sheet structures, and to accelerate delivery of projects which might otherwise have to be delayed.

In many developing countries, public sector governance is weak.  Experience with private sector involvement in infrastructure projects underlines the need not only for innovative regulatory and financial structures to deal with a multitude of contractual, political, market, and credit risks, but also for building credible structures to ensure that projects are environmentally responsive, socially sensitive, economically viable, and politically feasible.

Building capacity.....

In this context, the public-private partnerships in infrastructure (PPPI) program provides systemic training, and skills enhancement leading to the development of a cadre of capable and knowledgeable public sector professionals adequately equipped to deal with complex public-private partnerships transactions. Today, the PPPI program of the WBI provides capacity building learning events in all aspects of the public-private partnerships project cycle:

• Prioritization and Selection of public-private partnerships projects
• Institutional Structuring
• Legal and Contractual Framework
• Project Financing
• Risk Management Economic 
• Regulation and Competition

Moreover, upon request the team may enrich enhance the capacity of its clients via learning events and technical assistance on specific issues that many countries face during design and implementation of public-private partnerships projects. These may included , inter alia, fiscal risk management, social and  environmental challenges, as well as decentralization and central coordination of public-private partnerships projects and others.