PPPs in Colombia: Policy Lessons

Abstract

Latin American countries have introduced private participation in the transport sector to decrease the economic resources spent in projects’ time line. This private participation has also increased the development of corridors in which governments have taken more presence, allowing trade, either at the regional or international market level. However, the path followed by those countries has involved adjustments in regulations, laws, policies, risk management, financing, and guarantees.This chapter shows changes in the Private–Public Partnership (PPP) contracts in Latin America and describes the context of this model and the main challenges faced by the PPP contract since the 1990s in Colombia, including renegotiation characteristics. Also, this chapter describes how road projects have addressed this for benefiting both private and public stakeholders as different investment programs and governments pass. Those elements and best practices could be relevant in transportation policy design in terms of risk allocation in first-time PPP contract celebration and renegotiation process, execution time of contracting phases from design until project reverse, selection of best PPP modalities like BOOT or DBFO, among others. The aim is to describe a three decades’ knowledge of PPP experiences based on its evolution in Colombia and Latin America, considering technical and contractual characteristics.KeywordsPublic–Private Partnership in Latin AmericaRisk allocationContract performance and renegotiation context