Box 12: The World Bank's Infrastructure-Prioritization Framework " "Social cost-benefit analysis (SCBA) provides sound project appraisal and, when systematically applied, a basis for prioritizing projects. However, in some instances, capacity and resource limitations make extensive economic analysis across full project sets unfeasible in the immediate term. (…) The Infrastructure Prioritization Framework (IPG) is a multi-criteria decision support tool that considers project outcomes along two dimensions-social-environmental and financial-economic. (…) IPF is structured to accommodate multiple policy objectives; attend to social and environmental factors; provide an intuitive platform for displaying results; and take advantage of available data whilst promoting capacity building and data collection for more sophisticated appraisal methods and selection frameworks. " Source: Marcello, Darwin; Mandri-Perrott, Cledan; Schwartz, Jordan Z.; and House, Shuyler, An Alternative Approach to Project Selection: The Infrastructure Prioritization Framework, World Bank, 2016. |
After a first-level screening and identification, candidate projects must undergo an appraisal process to develop a business case. During this iterative process, the design of the PPP solution-including the risk allocation, the payment mechanism, and the structure and principal terms of the PPP contract- are usually progressively assessed and developed at a basic level. Many analyses, assessments and studies are undertaken in parallel during this phase, with results from one study feeding into the other to assess whether the project is feasible from all relevant perspectives, and suitable for PPP delivery.
Box 13: Definitions of Pre-Feasibility and Feasibility Studies • Pre-feasibility study: a short, focused and low-cost assessment of a project's viability. The intention is to define the project and collate information necessary to develop the project concept, based on an engineering design concept, the technical and financial challenges of implementation, and expected project outcomes and impacts. Governments often undertake this less-detailed analysis of the fundamentals of a project before full appraisal, to ensure that time and resources are well spent. • Feasibility study: a full feasibility study (also referred to as a business case) is a detailed investigation of the project. It assesses the technical, financial and legal feasibility of a proposed project, whether the project satisfies a public need and is a good public investment decision based on an economic viability analysis (cost-benefit analysis), as well as whether it is environmentally and socially sustainable. |
Several openings exist during this stage to:
• Understand women's perspectives, as well as existing differences between both genders that are likely to constrain the outcome of the project-for example, limited finances of women that could hinder access to infrastructure services;53
• Assess potential negative and positive impacts of a project on male and female service users and stakeholders, as well as opportunities to narrow gender gaps;
• Develop corresponding design features; and
• Translate these features into commitments.
Some key entry points for these considerations during the appraisal stage include:
a. Terms of reference for consulting firms;
c. Environmental and social feasibility;
e. Financial viability assessment;
f. Economic viability assessment;
g. Legal feasibility assessment; and
Section four maps out a series of questions that can be included in the feasibility study to ensure that a project is gender-sensitive.
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53 For data on financial inclusion, see the Global Findex database; for data measuring the legal obstacles to women who engage in economic activity, and legal data on differences that may lead to inequalities between men and women, see the Women, Business and the Law Report 2018.