PPPs generally seem to become a political priority under three conditions, which are sometimes related to each other. First, a government may voluntarily decide to explore the engagement of the formal private sector for ideological reasons, or to reform a public service. Such a shift of direction typically, albeit not only, occurs when there is a change of government. Second, an economic crisis may encourage a government to explore new ways of managing public assets and services, including partnership approaches. Finally, amid such crises, donor or lender structural adjustment programmes may require governments in developing countries to introduce private sector participation.
Municipal capacity to work in partnerships involving the international private sector may be promoted by any one of these conditions, but action is often initiated at the local level as well. In Zimbabwe, for instance, the national initiative for corporatisation and privatisation was promoted by the World Bank Economic Structural Adjustment Programme. At the local level the change in government and political mismanagement of municipal finances also created the inclination among administrators to pursue PPPs in earnest. Despite the unrest in Colombia, certain other factors created a politically supportive context in which to launch a partnership initiative. These included a protracted economic recession, institutional reforms to the water sector that promoted a market approach, an ambitious national-level water and sanitation plan, a deepening fiscal crisis in local government, and rapid urbanisation.