Introduction: the paradox of PPP advocacy

.

Chapter 1 in The Rise and Fall of Public–Private Partnerships, 2024, pp 1-20 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Beginning in the 1990s, public-private partnerships (PPPs) were strongly promoted by prominent development institutions as revolutionary tools for mobilizing infrastructure investment in developing countries. However, after three decades of experimentation it has become clear that no revolution has taken place-PPPs have been largely unsuccessful in developing countries, especially the poorest countries most in need of investment. Despite these failures, policymakers at the highest levels of the international development community have mostly ignored the implications of evidence-based evaluations and continue to unreservedly promote PPPs. The persistence of this faith in the private sector to solve infrastructure investment problems seems paradoxical. It flourishes in the face of compelling critical studies of PPPs done by well-regarded researchers. This unshakable faith has fueled the growth of a global PPP constituency involving hundreds of programs, facilities, funds, and other entities which employ billions of dollars in development aid to focus on ways of making PPPs successful. At a time when practical infrastructure solutions are desperately needed to address climate change problems and achieve Sustainable Development Goals, PPP advocacy continues to thrive. This book offers a political economy explanation of this paradox, by tracing the 30-year evolution of PPP advocacy.

Keywords: Economics and Finance; Sustainable Development Goals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035345052.00010 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:23862_1

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().