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Public-Private Partnerships in the Caribbean

Published date 2014-07-15
Author Alfonzo Guzman - Brian Samuel - David Ehrhardt - Maria Jimena Cordoba
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From the document: 

Good quality infrastructure is a prerequisite for economic growth. Infrastructure stocks in the Caribbean are not adequate for much of the Region’s population. Many of the Borrowing Member Countries (BMCs) of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) are struggling to improve their infrastructure services — against the challenges of high debt burdens, tight budgets, declining investment and lagging economies...

Conservative estimates indicate that in order to increase and improve the Caribbean Region’s infrastructure stocks to acceptable international standards, total investment of about USD21.4 billion (bn) is required over the next 11 years. Based on our analysis of public expenditure patterns in BMCs, we estimate that under the “business as usual” scenario, BMC governments would be able to finance about USD10.8 bn of this amount — leaving a financing gap of about USD10.6 bn over the next decade...

To find a way around the problems resulting from public procurement of infrastructure, Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) have evolved in many countries around the world. PPPs are long-term contracts between a government and a private party to deliver an infrastructure service — involving the sharing of risks and rewards among the contracting parties.