Procurement protocols for public-private partnered projects

Infrastructure megaprojects have often failed to meet original stakeholder expectations in both "pure" free markets and totally central-planned economies. Such failures provide the rationale for public-private partnerships (PPPs) that synergize both public and private strengths. Build-operate-transfer (BOT) type schemes are a popular type of PPP. They improve project procurement environments by changing traditionally adversarial scenarios to partnerships that integrate finance, design, construction, and operation. Many countries are still inexperienced in the complexities and implications of PPPs. The growing body of multi-country experiences in this domain needs to be tapped through comparison and benchmarking. Various kinds of BOT-type infrastructure developments in both developed and developing countries are compared in this paper to identify strengths from successful approaches and to draw lessons from less successful or abortive projects. Particular examples include toll roads in the United States, the Private Finance Initiative in the United Kingdom, and BOT and its variants in China. The experiences derived and lessons drawn are expected to improve the procurement protocols of public clients in future partnered infrastructure projects.