Given the increasing emphasis placed on PPPs as a means of closing the continent's infrastructure gaps and promoting social and economic development, it is important that credible, evidence-based information is available to guide decision-making and promote the efficiency and effectiveness of the Bank's PPP interventions over the next few years that will contribute to:
- Improve access to cost effective public goods and services as well as social and economic infrastructure;
- Promote good governance and fiscal sustainability in RMCs;
- Enhance the Bank's role as a partner of choice for PPP lending and non-lending in line with its policy and strategy to achieve its corporate goals and mandate.
IDEV carried out a stocktaking of the Bank's experience with PPP in 20145. The stocktaking exercise has set the stage for the present evaluation and reviewed the conceptualization and operationalization of the Bank's PPP strategic framework and interventions over the period 2006-2014. The Stocktaking Report highlighted that:
i) While PPPs have been an area of focus for the senior management at the Bank, there is no operational PPP definition, and the Bank does not have an operational framework or a structure in place to guide the implementation of PPPs;
ii) The level of PPP financing at the Bank has been relatively modest mainly due to a lack of PPP capacity and expertise, with the majority of PPPs being concentrated in the energy sector.
The same report also recommended that an in-depth evaluation of a cluster of the Bank's PPP projects is needed in order to provide an independent assessment of the relevance and performance of this cluster of projects, while taking into account the countries' context and particularities of the PPP business model.
The purpose of this follow-up PPP evaluation is thus three-fold: i) Assess to what extent the objectives and corporate goals of Bank PPP assistance/interventions achieved their development results; ii) Assess to what extent Bank PPP assistance/interventions have been effectively managed; and iii) identify factors that enable and/or hinder successful implementation and achievement of objectives and harvest lessons from past experiences to inform Bank's future use of its PPPs mechanism.
The evaluation will provide key stakeholders (AfDB Board, senior management, RMCs, development partners and CSOs) an evidence-based assessment of the Bank's role in supporting PPPs, the potential for PPPs to promote sustainable social and economic development, and identify the extent to which this potential is currently being realized. Furthermore, the evaluation will identify lessons and recommendations pertaining to the Bank's support to RMCs using the PPP mechanism that will guide and inform the implementation of the 2013-2017 AfDB Group Private Sector Development Strategy, the High Fives6 and the 2013-2022 Ten Year Strategy as well as the Industrialization Strategy.7
____________________________________________________________________________________
5 Bank Group Utilization of the Public-Private Partnership Mechanism (2006-2014) -Stock taking Report- ADB/BD/IF/2016/01 ADF/BD/IF/2016/01- January 2016
6 'Light Up and Power Africa', 'Feed Africa', 'Industrialize Africa', 'Integrate Africa', and 'Improve Quality of Life for Africans'.
7 The Bank Group Industrialization Strategy for Africa states that: "The Bank will leverage its understanding of Private Sector funding to support the development of industrial infrastructure & PPP frameworks. The Bank intends to develop 30 PPP units across Africa and help them structure their initial deals. Moreover, the Bank Group will scale up the use of its program based instruments to support attainment of conducive macroeconomic environment, regulatory reform and policy dialogue that are necessary to ensure that private sector operations are embedded in a favorable environment". (Source: Bank Group Industrialization Strategy for Africa : ADB/BD/WP/2016/46 ADF/BD/WP/2016/36 - 12 April 2016 page 14.)