Pro-Poor Public-Private Partnership

Background

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) are a mechanism for delivering essential community infrastructure and services that has been used widely over recent years. In particular, PPPs have been endorsed by international financial institutions and aid organisations. They have been seen as a means of filling the widening gap between pressures for improved public services in developing countries and the capacity of governments and international development budgets to fund those services. They also represent a response to the poor performance of many state-owned enterprises as well as concerns about the quality of government service delivery and the way it is administered.

Even in developing countries, not all PPPs will be intended to facilitate poverty reduction. Many PPPs will be implemented to meet the needs of more affluent sections of the population, or for the provision of infrastructure and services to support major economic enterprises. There is clearly scope, however, for PPPs to be targeted in whole or in part towards producing tangible economic, social and environmental benefits for the poor. ESCAP seeks to promote that approach.

Intervention

The objective of this project is to facilitate public-private partnerships that provide basic services for the poor, namely access to water, energy, health services and biodiversity conservation.

The project was a collective effort of different sections within ESCAP. The Poverty Reduction Section wass responsible for the documentation of PPPs that benefit the poor. Guidelines for documentation have been developed and can be downloaded here.

Links to related documents:

Understanding Pro-poor Public-Private Partnerships (pdf format)

Guidelines for documenting Pro-poor PPPs

Improving the Lives of the Urban Poor: Case studies on the provision of basic services through partnerships