Global Review of Public Infrastructure Funds - Volume I
One of the most common, but least written about, public policy instruments implemented by governments to encourage private finance has been the establishment of Public Infrastructure Funds (PIFs). At this point, readers may ask "what are PIFs?" One of the benefits of PIFs is that they are unique, adapted to meet specific country contexts, but conversely this can make them hard to accurately define. Put simply, they are a specific type of infrastructure financing fund that uses public resources to leverage much larger amounts of private financing for infrastructure development. Indeed, the quest to adequately answer the "what are PIFs?" question, and understand their design features and success factors, motivated the development of this World Bank Group report.
This report presents the findings of a global review of a cross-section of PIFs in Argentina, Bangladesh, Canada, Colombia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, and South Africa. These case studies provided a range of differentiated lessons learned given their geographical distribution, governance structures, institutional capacities, availability and types of financing products, and purposes. Information on the case studies was drawn from country visits, interviews, and further desk research based on publicly available reports and archives. Detailed write-ups of each case study are included as a complementary Volume II to this report.