Private – Public Partnerships in Urban Water Supply Sector: A Study of the Regional Trends

Abstract

Historically, public utilities have been mainly delivered by the public sector. However, as a result of financial and technological constraints faced by public sector entities in developing infrastructure facilities and due to management related inefficiencies in the public sector, various alternative governance mechanisms have been considered by governments in developing public utility infrastructure and providing the related services to the end-users. Consequently, for nearly three decades now countries have relied on the procurement model of public-private partnerships (PPP) to finance, develop and manage infrastructure facilities in the water sector. In order to analyze the viability of PPP as an alternative governance model for water, it is important to examine a sample of PPP projects from around the world and analyze the reasons for their successes and failures. For this purpose, Institute of Water Policy, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, has undertaken a research project to compile a database of PPP projects in the urban water supply sector in different regions (Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, Australia and Middle East and North Africa). This paper presents a brief analysis of PPPs as a water governance architecture based on the study of 672 PPP projects from the said database, the selection being made on the basis of availability of data, and presents the preliminary findings on current usage of PPP for water governance.