How PPIAF leveraged $17.1 billion for infrastructure by focusing on the critical upstream

Photo: BrilliantEye | iStock

As the only global facility specifically dedicated to reinforcing the legal, institutional and policy underpinnings of private sector participation in infrastructure—which we call the critical upstream—we at the Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF) realize we have a key responsibility to developing countries.

That responsibility is to help client governments unlock their potential by de-risking investments and creating an enabling environment for private sector participation, itself a condition to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and climate-smart objectives. As such, PPIAF fits neatly into the new Maximizing Financing for Development (MFD) approach to crowd in the private sector, an initiative launched by the World Bank Group and other multilateral development banks last year.

To do this, we produce knowledge, toolkits, and guidance, which are fed by, and inform, our technical assistance activities to public procuring authorities around the globe.

This is the story you will find illustrated and explained in our latest Annual Report. At the end of our strategic period, which spanned fiscal years 2015–17, we took this opportunity to reflect both on the past three years and longer-term trends since PPIAF’s inception in 2000.

The last three years have seen the launch of our new website, including access to a greatly-expanded repository of documents and activity-linked reports and outputs specifically for our donors. A greater emphasis on programmatic support has meant targeting specific interventions and issues—an approach we are taking further in the next five years with the introduction of strong thematic elements, such as climate change or fragility, and a focus on generating impact in 30 priority countries. The strengthening of PPIAF’s results monitoring allows us to better evidence the catalytic role played by PPIAF in enabling infrastructure investments.  More robust financial portfolio monitoring gives further assurance to our contributors about the high standard we hold over our fiduciary obligations.

The PPIAF report captures the impact we have had over 17 years of operations. 

For example, PPIAF has:

• Leveraged $17.1 billion for infrastructure projects
• Helped sub-national entities raise $902 million for infrastructure projects
• Facilitated 140 policies, laws and regulations that improve the enabling environment for infrastructure and PPPs
• Strengthened 276 institutions
• Trained over 17,000 officials so that they can better manage infrastructure development projects themselves

This report is also a way for us to better disseminate the breadth and width of what we are doing through a more qualitative narrative. Dissemination and outreach are some of the key dimensions impacting our overall efficiency and the potential for replication. It also helps secure a continuous donor support, a critical step—as a grant-making facility—to our sustained capacity to assist developing countries in equipping themselves for PPPs.

So please have a look at the stories we tell in our 2017 Annual Report to learn more about our latest knowledge products, view snapshots of assistance by region and sector, and most importantly, see how successful activities and partnerships have impacted the daily lives of people around the globe.


Related posts:

Working to attract PPPs in countries with the greatest needs

Boosting access to market-based debt financing for sub-national entities

Building sustainable infrastructure one click at a time