European Investment Bank (EIB, 2004, p.2): "public-private partnership" is a generic term for the relationships formed between the private sector and public bodies often with the aim of introducing private sector resources and/or expertise in order to help provide and deliver public sector assets and services. The term PPP is thus used to describe a wide variety of working arrangements from loose, informal and strategic partnerships, to design-build-finance-and-operate (DBFO) type service contracts and formal joint venture companies. EIB (2005, p. 3) provides a working definition, "a PPP [is] defined to be the private-sector construction and operation of infrastructure (including Concessions) which would otherwise have been provided by the public sector".
European Commission (EC, 2004): the term "public-private partnership", in general, refers to forms of co-operation between public authorities and the world of business which aim to ensure the funding, construction, renovation, management and maintenance of an infrastructure of the provision of a service.
International Monetary Fund (Hemming & Staff team 2006, p. 1; Hemming, 2006, p. 3): "Public-private partnerships (PPPs) refer to arrangements under which the private sector supplies infrastructure assets and infrastructure-based services that traditionally have been provided by the government. PPPs are used for a wide range of economic and social infrastructure projects, but they are mainly used to build and operate roads, bridges and tunnels, light rail networks, airports and air traffic control systems, prisons, water and sanitation plants, hospitals, schools, and public buildings". "A typical PPP takes the form of a design-build-finance-operate (DBFO) scheme. Under such a scheme, the government specifies the services it wants the private sector to deliver, and then the private partner designs and builds an asset specifically for that purpose, finances its construction, and subsequently operates the asset (i.e., provides the services deriving from it)."
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 2008, p. 12): A PPP is defined as "an agreement between the government and one or more private partners (which may include the operators and the financers) according to which the private partners deliver the service in such a manner that the service delivery objectives of the government are aligned with the profit objectives of the private partners and where the effectiveness of the alignment depends on a sufficient transfer of risk to the private partners." Despite many similarities between them, this OECD study also makes distinction between PPPs and concessions based on the amount of risk carried by the private provider and the main source of income of the private provider (i.e. user charges and fees paid by the government).
World Bank Institute (2012, p. 11): A PPP is "a long-term contract between a private party and a government agency, for providing a public asset or service, in which the private party bears significant risk and management responsibility".
India: "An arrangement between a government or statutory entity or government owned entity on one side and a private sector entity on the other, for the provision of public assets and/ or related services for public benefit, through investments being made by and/ or management undertaken by the private sector entity for a specified time period, where there is a substantial risk sharing with the private sector and the private sector receives performance linked payments that conform (or are benchmarked) to specified, pre-determined and measurable performance standards."
Peru: "A PPP is a modality of private investment participation that involves expertise, knowledge, equipment, technology and distribution of risks and resources, preferable private, with the purpose of creating, developing, improving, operating or maintaining public infrastructure or providing public services and/or provides services related to those required by the State, also to develop projects of applied research and/or technological innovation."
South Africa: "PPP is a contract between a public sector institution/municipality and a private party, in which the private party assumes substantial financial, technical and operational risk in the design, financing, building and operation of a project."14
Tanzania: "PPP is an arrangement between public sector and private sector entities whereby the private entities renovate, construct, operate, maintain, and/ or manage a facility in whole or in part in accordance with output specifications. The private entity assumes the associated risks for a significant period of time and in return, receives benefits/financial remunerations according to agreed terms; which can be in the form of tariffs or user charges. PPP is therefore a cooperative venture built on the expertise of each partner that best meets clearly defined public needs through the most appropriate allocation of resources, risks and rewards."15
Netherlands: "A form of cooperation between government and business (in many cases also involving NGOs, trade unions, and/or knowledge institutions) in which they agree to work together to reach a common goal or carry out a specific task, jointly assuming the risks and responsibility and sharing their resources and competences."16
United Kingdom: "PPPs are arrangements typified by joint working between the public and private sectors. In their broadest sense they can cover all types of collaboration across the private-public sector interface involving collaborative working together and risk sharing to deliver policies, services and infrastructure." The most common type of PPP in the UK is the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), which is "an arrangement whereby the public sector contracts to purchase services, usually derived from an investment in assets, from the private sector on a long-term basis, often between 15 to 30 years."17
Standard and Poor's (2005): A PPP is any medium- to long-term relationship between the public and private sectors, involving the sharing of risks and rewards of multisector skills, expertise and finance to deliver desired policy outcomes.
Bain (2009, p. i): A PPP is "an alternative approach to traditional public sector procurement. Under a typical PPP, the private sector designs, builds, finances, operates and maintains infrastructure (such as roads or schools) in return for performance-related payments from government agencies ('promoters') and/ or the right to charge users for services. Importantly, the public sector passes project risk to the private sector where, in theory, it can be better managed - thus providing value-for-money".
Mackenzie Nicholson (2010, p. 2): A PPP is "a relationship between public and private entities that are responsible for the delivery of an infrastructure asset and/or associated services (servicing, operations, and maintenance). Through this relationship there is a transfer of risk from the public to the private sector. Generally, there is a payment mechanism between the public and private sector based on revenue from services and usually ownership is then transferred to the public sector at the end of the contract."
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14 Republic of South Africa, National Treasury website. http://www.ppp.gov.za/Pages/whatisppp.aspx
15 Tanzania National Public Private Partnership policy: http://www.tanzania.go.tz/egov_uploads/documents/ppp_policy_sw.pdf
16 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. (2013).
17 UK Treasury. (2008)