PPP's Creating a better future for the people

• About 1.06 billion people live without electricity;
• 4.5 billion still lack access to safely managed sanitation;
• 2.1 billion lack access to safely managed drinking water;
• More than 300,000 children under five years of age died from washing-related diarrheal diseases in 2016—that’s more than one child every two minutes.  ¹

But these are not just numbers. They are people. People living in conditions of extreme poverty who are at risk of being left behind by global progress.

And these people are the reason why the World Bank helps developing countries reduce poverty, providing funding and knowledge.

In their work around the world, the World Bank is facing overlapping crises such as climate change, conflict, pandemics, natural disasters, and forced displacement. At the same time, the World Bank must help their client countries to face immediate crises, build resilience against challenges on the horizon, and make enduring investments to prepare for an uncertain future.

Its five institutions ² ; The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, The International Development Association, The International Finance Corporation, The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency and The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes share a commitment to reducing poverty, increasing shared prosperity, and promoting sustainable development. They set a target date to end extreme poverty by 2030, reducing the share of the world’s population living on less than $1.90 a day, and to boost shared prosperity among the poorest 40 percent around the world. ³

But achieving these goals requires changes in governance, institutional, and social policy, and therefore enormous efforts by national governments and the international community.

Building modern, sustainable, and reliable infrastructure is essential to meet the growing aspirations of billions of people around the world. Thus, for instance, congested and inadequate ports, airports, and roadways are a drag on growth and trade.

The World Bank therefore adopts an integrated approach to increase and finance infrastructure services in developing countries, with a view to greater access, affordability, and sustainability. Their support for infrastructure includes helping countries develop knowledge and ability to design and implement quality public-private partnerships (PPPs), where appropriate.

We report the definition of PPPs given by the World Bank: a long-term contract between a private party and a government entity, for providing a public asset or service, in which the private party bears significant risk and management responsibility, and remuneration is linked to performance⁴

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) can be a tool to meet these infrastructure service needs. If well designed and implemented in a balanced regulatory environment, PPPs can make the provision of public services such as water, sanitation, energy, transport, healthcare, telecommunications, and education environment more efficient and sustainable. PPPs can also allow for better risk sharing between public and private entities.

With this in mind, the Bank published its Procuring Infrastructure PPPs 2018 report⁵, which benchmarked the regulatory framework of 135 economies against internationally recognized good practices.

Furthermore, the APMG PPP Certification Program—which aims to improve performance, develop capabilities, and ensure global good practices among PPP operators— is available in English, Portuguese, Chinese, French, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and Serbian.

This Certification Program is an innovation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), the World Bank Group (WBG) and part funded by the Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF) with a common vision of improving PPP performance globally. The CP³P is the definitive credential to demonstrate alignment with international PPP good practices. 

Governments around the world have turned to public-private partnerships (PPPs) to design, finance, build, and manage infrastructure projects. PPPs, while remaining a small part of infrastructure procurement, constitute an important channel for attracting private sector funding to infrastructure projects. In 2018, PPI investments amounted to 90 billion dollars in 335 projects globally.⁶

"It is through the commitment of our shareholders, staff, and clients that the World Bank will continue to be a trusted partner for countries all over the world who are working to create a better future for their people,” Kristalina Georgieva,  CEO of the World Bank.