With the vision of becoming a Middle Income Country by the year 2021 and the need to substantially increase the investment in infrastructure projects by unlocking private sector participation, there was a need to re-invigorate the PPP program in Bangladesh.
Previous policies and efforts had failed to realize the volume and size of PPP pipeline that was necessary to meet our development targets. In 2009/10 there were only 3 active PPP projects in the pipeline although the targets set out under the 6th Five Year Plan was for thousands of crores taka of investment across multiple sectors. In updating the PPP program, the Government carried out a holistic review of PPP processes and the institutional framework that were introduced under the PSIG, in order to identify constraints that were holding back the development of a vibrant and expanding PPP program. Based on this review and international best practice in leading PPP practicing countries a number of changes for the PPP Program was proposed and implemented through the Policy and Strategy for Public-Private Partnership (PPP), 2010, which was gazetted in August 2010 (PPP Policy 2010).
The key contextual change related to focusing on the development of an institutional framework and regulatory environment to promote the implementation of a PPP programme rather than focusing on implementation of individual projects. Taking a programme based approach would enable government to establish a sustainable platform for PPPs that would be applied across a number of different sectors and attract investment from multiple players. Such an approach would also foster the opportunity for replication and therefore the ability to incorporate lessons learnt leading to projects that are better structured and can be delivered in a more accelerated manner.