Public-Private Partnerships and Concessions

The EBRD regions continue to experience an increased demand for infrastructure, which is particularly acute in light of scarce financial resources and competition for funds and expertise. Attracting private sector resources such as funding, efficient management and know-how facilitates overcoming limitations of the public budget for infrastructure building, maintenance and quality services provision. Public-private partnership (PPP) structures have become one of the most common instruments for the development of infrastructure, using the resources and expertise of the private sector.

The EBRD experience shows that effective implementation of PPP structures for infrastructure development, particularly in developing economies, is impossible without efficient and transparent policy, legal/regulatory and institutional frameworks encouraging private sector participation (including foreign capital), that is on sustainable terms and with appropriate allocation of risks between the public and private sectors.

The LTP’s role

For more than two decades, the LTP has been assisting governments committed to bringing their PPP/concession regimes in line with internationally accepted standards and best practice in the PPP/concessions sector.

The LTP’s technical assistance typically focuses on:

• supporting national PPP policy formulation and strategic advice on sector development to the ministry in charge or other counterparts
• assisting governments align their legal and regulatory frameworks with internationally accepted standards and best practices, including support to legislative drafting and providing necessary implementation arrangements
• helping governments to ensure that the necessary institutional infrastructure is in place, with the delineation of policy formulation, regulatory and operational functions
• providing support to capacity-building, training and awareness activities.

The scope of each technical assistance / legal reform project is carefully developed in cooperation with the respective government, to match the region's specific needs with tailored expertise. Assessment results often serve as an indication of gaps and a starting point for the identification of areas of potential assistance.

Sound PPP legal frameworks and policies are of paramount importance for the development of the PPP sector. A stable and predictable legislative and regulatory environment enables the attraction of investment in PPP projects and further lays the ground for the successful completion of PPPs. The EBRD has been over the past few years developing a collection of PPP regulatory guidelines, which represents some five years of hard work of a dedicated group of experts, most of whom took an active part in this formidable effort on a pro bono basis. The publication aims to address the needs of the many governments and authorities in certain EBRD economies that shared their feedback and priorities with the EBRD regarding their desire and even the necessity of assembling examples of internationally accepted standards and best practices in the area of public-private partnership as far as its regulatory, institutional and enabling frameworks are concerned.

The EBRD PPP Regulatory Guidelines Collection (hereinafter the EBRD PPP Guidelines) is a publication that consists of three volumes and will be issued as an electronic version and in a limited number of hard copies. The EBRD PPP Guidelines comprise of a set of Model Laws, Policies and Templates that have been produced according to best practices and international standards, and can be used by Governments and respective agencies as benchmark and reference material.Below is the Table of Contents of the EBRD PPP Regulatory Guidelines Collection:

PPP/Concessions Law Assessment 2017/18

To analyse relevant information in each economy, the EBRD devised a checklist with lists of questions covering key PPP and concessions issues.

Using the checklist, specific economy assessments were carried out with the assistance of consultants. This assessment takes into account laws as they appear on the books, as opposed to the way they work in practice. EBRD recently undertook its latest Assessment of PPP Laws in 2017/18 the results of which can be found below. Furthermore, the newly designed interactive web tool provides the opportunity to review country results and compare country data. Read more about this project, the 2017/2018 assessment results, country rating and country-specific comments and observations in the Report on the results of the assessment of Concession Laws. 

PPPs /Concessions Law Assessment 2011

The PPPs/concessions sector assessment is part of the EBRD's efforts to improve the legal environment in the economies EBRD invests in. As an international institution with the mandate to assist the transition economies, the EBRD views the promotion of sound PPP and concession laws as essential to its work.

These assessments represent an important initiative of the EBRD to better understand legal developments in EBRD region by gauging the status of their PPPs and concessions-related laws and regulations. Through this project, the EBRD aims to encourage, influence and provide guidance to governments, policy makers and all those in charge of promoting new legislation for the development of PPPs and concessions-related legal reform in the region.

In 2011 the subject of the assessment is wider and covers, for the first time, all PPP models as opposed to what has been the subject of earlier EBRD evaluations - Concessions and BOT/DBFO-type models regulation.

Core Principles for a Modern Concession Law (MCL).

Based on its experience and responding to the reform needs of region, the EBRD has developed  its own set of core principles of a modern condession law ("MCL"). These principles are based on international standards and best practices and therefore can assist in assessing a MCL and in identifying the need for reform. These principles are meant as guidelines only and speak more of the results to be achieved rather than the process by which to achieve them.