Conclusions

Abstract

The global experience with PPP arrangements has been largely trial-and-error, with expensive lessons for governments and citizens/users alike, and much more rarely, for private partners. The underlying economic principle of PPPs is to achieve greater value for money—i.e., the delivery of better services at lower costs. However, the complexity and liabilities inherent to the PPP model have often eroded any of the advantages from applying competitive market pressure to public infrastructure sectors. The PPP model simultaneously has fierce advocates and fierce critics, although the latter group has not been able to provide feasible alternatives to finance public infrastructure without either private involvement, or realistic alternatives to the use of private financing with entirely different arrangements. The trend therefore has been to incrementally build upon and improve existing PPP models.