124. The OECD identified key infrastructure projects in each of the four focus countries that involved private sector participation in the last decade (starting in 2005). For each project, the main risks and barriers faced were identified through OECD assessment missions in the applicable country, consultations with IFIs involved, and desk research. Seventeen types of risks and barriers were identified and grouped into four categories, political, financial, legal and institutional (including government capacity), and operational risks.
125. For each of the 69 projects examined17, barriers encountered were grouped into one of each of the 17 individual risk categories. This has allowed the OECD to develop a snapshot of the most frequent and relevant barriers and obstacles encountered that inhibit private sector participation in infrastructure in the four countries. There is a degree of subjectivity involved in the assessment of the relevance of the barrier and a government's ability to mitigate the risk and it should be noted that the OECD is not attempting to provide a quantitative assessment of risk. What follows is intended to highlight the relative frequency and importance of risks and barriers faced by private sector infrastructure investors in the four countries of focus.
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17 . See Annex 2.