Public Private Partnerships: Solving Africa’s Infrastructure Needs

Infrastructure plays a key role in stimulating economic growth. well paved roads, efficient and stable power supplies, advanced information and communication technology (ICT) and healthcare infrastructure helps in boosting productivity and competitiveness.

Many African governments are increasingly aware of their inefficiencies in terms of skills, technologies etc to implement large infrastructure projects. This is where private sector investors come in. By working with experienced private sector providers of goods and services, governments can still execute their infrastructure development agenda. The World Bank estimates private sector investment in infrastructure in the developing world (PPI) at $76.2 billion in 2021, a 49 per cent increase from 2020.

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) refer to collaborative partnerships between the public sector and private organizations. PPPs are an alternative mechanism, used by governments, for procuring, delivering, financing, and managing public infrastructure and services. They aim to bring together the expertise and resources of the two sectors to provide services or infrastructure at a better value for money. The effectiveness of PPPs is based on three key factors; focus on service delivery, innovative financing, and risk sharing by public and private sector partners.

Kenya for example, has one of the more mature PPP markets in Africa with a comprehensive legislative framework with the Public Private Partnerships (PPP) Bill 2021 signed into law in December 2021. The existing PPP framework has enabled the Kenyan government to implement high-quality infrastructure projects mostly in the energy and roads sectors. However, there is still more that can be done to foster more PPPs for increased economic development in other sectors such as healthcare, WASH and urban development.

Key benefits of PPPs include:

• Provision of better public services. Innovations and technology from the private sector can help provide better public services through improved operational efficiency.
• Benefits from economies of scale
• Allows the government to focus on functions where it has a comparative advantage
• Increase access for groups that have previously insufficiently served under traditional forms of service delivery
• Increase the transparency of government spending by making the costs of service more visible.
• Economic diversification. This fosters competitiveness for associated businesses and helps boost economic growth

Between 14th to 21st of October 2022, Strathmore University Business School trained 8 participants in the Public-Private Partnerships Executive Programme. The participants trained in this Programme were national and county government officers, state corporation managers, private practitioners, and technical consultants.

The Public Private Partnership Executive Programme is a 4-day Foundation course offered in partnership with the International Public-Private Partnerships Institute (IP3I); an Accredited Training Organization (ATO) by APM Group Ltd.

The main objective of this Foundation course is to introduce the Public Private Partnership concept as an option to procure and manage infrastructure. The course was delivered through a hybrid model that included a combination of interactive lectures, discussions and case studies delivered by Public Private Partnership experts; both from academia and industry. Learn more about this Programme here

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