RESOURCES/FEATURED STORIES

Planning a new PPP project? Check out the new resources available on the PPPLRC website

28 July 2021
Planning a new PPP project? Check out the new resources available on the PPPLRC website
Public-private partnerships, or PPPs, are a great way to finance infrastructure projects. But the process can be complicated. Implementing PPPs, which deal with both the public and private sectors, benefit from robust legislative frameworks and carefully prepared contracts. Getting these legislative and regulatory ducks in a row can make the process of developing and implementing well-structured PPPs a lot faster and easier. In 2006, the World Bank Group set up a resource to help practitioners—including government officials, project managers, and lawyers—with legal and contractual issues

Public-private partnerships, or PPPs, are a great way to finance infrastructure projects. But the process can be complicated. Implementing PPPs, which deal with both the public and private sectors, benefit from robust legislative frameworks and carefully prepared contracts. Getting these legislative and regulatory ducks in a row can make the process of developing and implementing well-structured PPPs a lot faster and easier.

In 2006, the World Bank Group set up a resource to help practitioners—including government officials, project managers, and lawyers—with legal and contractual issues related to PPPs in developing countries. The Public-Private Partnership Legal Resource Center (PPPLRC), (formerly known as the Public-Private Partnership in Infrastructure Resource Center), is an online platform that houses a wide and unique collection of sample laws, regulations, contracts, and other resources across various sectors and PPP-related topics.

Funded initially with seed money from PPIAF, PPPLRC draws from international experience and precedents to help governments create an enabling environment conducive to PPPs. It also offers thousands of sample legal documents that allow practitioners to consider structuring decisions for bankable PPPs. These include sample agreements, contracts, checklists, terms of reference for experts, and more. Documentation is available in English, French, Chinese, Spanish, and other languages.

Today, PPPLRC is now one of the most established online legal resources on PPPs in the world. The site attracts about 60,000 unique visitors each month from over 200 countries, signaling a year-on-year average increase of 48 percent over the past three years. Users can access this treasure trove of materials at no cost.

PPIAF’s Role

PPPLRC is a global resource on credible PPP legal knowledge and best practices for governments and industry practitioners. As the world of PPPs adapts to new market realities, PPPLRC evolves to stay on top of trends. Curated by a team of legal and infrastructure experts, it regularly updates content to ensure that it remains relevant for supporting quality PPP projects in developing countries.

PPPLRC’s core team is small. In addition to managing content development, it also is responsible for site administration and maintenance. PPIAF supports further developments to the website and expansion of content to new sectors and themes. Following a thorough content review and assessment of the needs of PPP practitioners, PPIAF will add information about new topics that are of value to practitioners and governments. Information is available or under development for the following:

  • Climate-smart PPPs: Focuses on how to structure PPPs that address climate change challenges and attract investment in climate-smart infrastructure. This is relevant for World Bank Group projects, which are screened for climate and disaster risk.

  • Fragile and Conflict States (FCS) and PPPs: Addresses the unique challenges of delivering PPPs in fragile environments and summarizes various risk mitigation products and processes. This topic directly aligns with the World Bank Group’s focus on the most vulnerable and marginalized people in countries impacted by fragility, conflict, and violence.

  • Mobilizing Finance: Provides content on the mechanisms that help governments maximize commercial finance for public infrastructure projects. This aligns with the World Bank Group’s approach to leveraging private sector investment in sustainable ways that bolster scarce public resources.

  • Deep dive into renegotiation and dispute resolution: Explores the different contractual mechanisms that help manage conflicts and unforeseen issues that arise during PPP contract periods. It also helps public and private partners deal with potential conflicts and crises and avoid force majeure or termination.

  • Innovative trends and approaches to PPPs in key sectors: The PPPLRC team reviewed existing sectoral pages and created new subsections that reflect advances in PPP structuring and contracts in these areas. This ensures that government officials, project managers, and lawyers have access to the latest innovations.

  • Mobilizing Islamic Finance for PPPs: Islamic Finance is becoming a key source of infrastructure finance worldwide. The Islamic Finance Trust Fund provided support for specialized content on Islamic Finance, including materials offering examples of Islamic financing structures that have worked for PPPs.

PPIAF will continue contributing content and input to the pages, drawing from its expertise, project experience, and other sources. To increase the accessibility of new and existing materials, the team translated 141 web pages into Chinese with ongoing efforts to refresh the French and Spanish sections of the new site.

Check out the latest development on the PPPLRC website now at https://ppp.worldbank.org/public-private-partnership/.