2.2  Before launching the tender

This stage has two main goals:

•  to further develop all aspects of the PPP design (e.g. responsibilities, risk allocation, payment mechanism) in a progressive and iterative manner, concluding with a full draft PPP contract; and

•  to select the tendering method, decide on bid evaluation criteria and prepare the complete tender documents.

At the end of this stage, the project management team will be ready to prequalify consortia interested in bidding for the project and issue the invitation to tender. It is useful to end this stage at that point because in some jurisdictions high-level clearance will be required before publishing the procurement notice and proceeding with the invitation to tender. The end of the stage is therefore an important mile-stone in the project delivery phase of the PPP cycle.

Some steps of the PPP cycle may not proceed in the rigid chronological order implied by the chart below as there are often overlaps. For example, the final tasks of detailed PPP design preparation may continue during the later prequalification exercise. This will often be the most efficient way for the advisers to proceed.