3.5.2  Marketing the PPP

Marketing the PPP helps attract bidders and investors. This is particularly important in the early stage of a PPP program-governments need to make a positive effort to build bidder interest, to increase competitive pressure. Marketing also helps identify who might be the potential bidders. This can feed into designing qualification criteria to avoid a situation where no firms qualify-as described in Kerf et al [#169, page 114].

At a minimum, marketing the PPP requires advertising the launch of the tender process. Many governments have requirements for how PPP tenders should be advertised. For example, the EPEC Guide to Guidance [#83, page 27] notes that EU governments must publish a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union. The South Africa PPP Manual [#219, page 24] describes that the procurement must be advertised in the Government Gazette, on the institution's website, and through press advertisements.

Some governments take a more proactive approach to marketing, with a view to generating investor interest prior to the official project launch. This could include:

•  Conducting investor presentations, meetings, or 'road shows' to present the project. The scale and location of meetings can be tailored to the expected interested investors-for example, whether likely to be local or international

•  Releasing 'teaser' material about the project. This could include publishing material in industry publications, such as Global Water Intelligence, or dedicated project development platforms, such as Zanbato.

There is limited guidance material available on marketing PPP projects. Farquharson et al [#95, page 105] briefly describes the advantage of releasing information about the project prior to the formal launch, to attract bidder interest. It also describes the value of marketing a pipeline of projects, rather than a single opportunity. Particularly for new PPP programs, this gives investors a stronger incentive to engage.