Developing Infrastructure through Public Private Partnerships; Understanding the Elements of the Enabling Environment

Abstract

This conceptual paper is chiefly concerned with developing our understanding about the nature of Public Private Partnerships (PPP) for procuring social and economic infrastructure and the enabling factors required for their operationalization, particularly within the context of developing countries. The paper provides an (academic) overview about the rationales and governing mechanisms through which PPP have been adopted in different parts of the world. This allows us to develop a critique about the enabling environment within which PPP programs might foster, particularly within developing countries. These perspectives are then used as a theoretical base for analyzing the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's PPP Act (GoKPK PPP Act, 2014) in order to understand how PPP may be established within KPK as a major public infrastructure procurement route. We conclude that Pakistan in general and KPK in particular lack a proper vision for establishing PPP. In particular, the key enabling elements of expertise (in PPP), regulatory mechanisms, inter-organizational and cross-sectoral trust and long-term project planning are gravely missing, which would impede operationalization of GoKPK policy on PPP. “Today, the private sector is the engine of growth for many countries and expansion of the private sector has become a central theme in the development agenda of many of those countries.” (Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI), 2007, p.15)