A review of soft factors for adapting public-private partnerships to deliver public information services in Ethiopia: A conceptual framework

Abstract

Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world, has been providing a haphazard and poorly structured Public Information Services (PISs) for decades. Effective PISs are channels of delivery of full-fledged digital information through electronic platforms from and to citizens on time. Accordingly, the Government has already recognized the role of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) to enhance sensitive PISs and realize its GTPs (Growth and Transformation Plans) despite the country's lack of clear regulatory framework of PPPs. A PPP is an agreement which could be signed by both the state and private sectors to deliver basic public demands on-time to citizens and PIS is a mode of implementing a digital and networked electronic service (e-Service) platform to citizens based on a common public interest. However, analyzing rigorously how to deliver basic PISs through PPPs and transform various state based sectors into an effective system has been an open question for the current Ethiopian practitioners. Through PPP, the private sector could play a role by contributing its flexible resources, expertise, and importing cutting-edge technologies thereby providing the rural and urban populaces with desired PISs. However, the readiness of the public sector to form partnerships with the private sector is minimal because establishing such a strong partnership is a complex phenomenon with several soft-factors including social and political. Being aware of this, the Ethiopian government has just started inspiring potential private sector actors in order to invest and improve the quality and delivery of basic PISs throughout the country. Although small in number, studies of other countries point out that many such initiatives tend to fail due to numerous causes. Furthermore, in developing countries, there are reported reality gaps, of various nature, regarding the impact of PPP initiatives as a mechanism to assuring the proper delivery of basic PISs. This study, therefore, is designed to analyze the soft factors of PPP initiatives that might help to adapt useful PPP models, relevant to the Ethiopian context, which ultimately help create successful, stable and quality PISs. A guiding theoretical foundation of this study is Soft-Systems Methodology (SSM). The study also intends to provide Ethiopian policy makers with a mechanism that will assist them to improve the delivery of basic PISs in the country.