PPIAF

Eligibile Applicants
Eligible Entities for PPIAF’s Sub-National Technical Assisstance Program 
Eligible Beneficiary Countries
Eligible Infrastructure Services
Eligible Forms of Private Sector Involvement

Eligible Applicants

Proposals for PPIAF support may originate from any source. However, proposals for country-specific activities require approval in writing from the relevant government. Similarly multicountry activities designed to directly benefit a small number of easily identifiable countries require approval in writing from all the relevant governments.

Eligible Entities for PPIAF’s Sub-National Technical Assistance Program: Local governments with responsibilities for delivering infrastructure services, along with utilities, authorities, special districts, and state-owned enterprises, are eligible to receive grants. Development finance institutions with a primary focus on infrastructure lending are also eligible.

Eligible Beneficiary Countries

PPIAF may support activities intended to benefit any developing or transition economy on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee’s (DAC) List of Aid Recipients. That includes any country listed under Developing Countries and Territories (all five columns of the Part I table) or Countries and Territories in Transition (column one of the Part II table). (The DAC List of Aid Recipients, as updated from time to time, can be found on the OECD Web site.)

Eligible Infrastructure Services

PPIAF may support activities aimed at facilitating private sector involvement in the following infrastructure services:

• Electricity generation, transmission, and distribution and natural gas transmission and distribution
• Water and sewerage, including solid waste and irrigation
• Solid waste
• Telecommunications
• Transport, including roads, ports, airports, railways and urban transport. 

Eligible Forms of Private Sector Involvement

PPIAF may support activities aimed at facilitating public-private partnerships in the financing, ownership, operation, rehabilitation, maintenance, or management of an eligible infrastructure service.

This covers a broad array of contracting approaches, from management contracts and leases to concessions, divestitures, and greenfield investment projects. And it encompasses a wide range of providers, from local and regional operators to international ones.

Eligible Activities

PPIAF may finance country-specific or multicountry advisory and related activities in any one of the following seven areas or in more than one. When a single proposal covers activities in more than one area, the application should clearly differentiate the primary and secondary areas.

1. Framing infrastructure development strategies to take full advantage of the potential for private sector involvement

PPIAF may finance studies intended to help governments explore their options for expanding private sector involvement in infrastructure. These studies may cover all infrastructure sectors in a single country, focus on particular sectors or sub-national governments within a country, or focus on issues across a broader region.

2. Creating outreach and communication programs to engage stakeholders and ensure transparency and accountability in reforms
 
Outreach and communication programs bring stakeholders into the process and that ensure their views inform project design.  That helps ensure that the design and delivery of infrastructure services are in line with the needs and demands of customers.  

PPIAF may finance a range of activities to help governments increase participation and communication around reform. This could include study tours, public opinion research, workshops for stakeholders, and full-scale outreach and communications campaigns.

3. Designing and implementing policy, regulatory, and institutional reforms

PPIAF may finance assistance to governments in designing and implementing a range of policy reforms relevant to private involvement in infrastructure. Governments may seek assistance in exploring options for involving the private sector, or for restructuring industries to facilitate competition, for example. Or, they may seek help in designing and establishing regulatory and institutional frameworks.

PPIAF-funded technical advice can take different forms. These might range from reports evaluating options for reform, to seminars on best practice in an area, to assistance in preparing and implementing new regulatory and institutional arrangements.

4. Designing and implementing pioneering projects and transactions

Most PPIAF activities focus on the “upstream” enabling environment for partnerships between the public and private sector. But PPIAF may also support the design and implementation of projects or transactions that are pioneering in some important way, offering  innovation and potential demonstration effects.

5. Building government capacity for designing and executing private infrastructure arrangements and regulating private service providers

PPIAF may finance assistance to governments in building capacity for designing and executing public-private partnerships and regulating private service providers. Training activities can take a range of forms, from ad hoc seminars to support for developing national or regional centers or programs.

6. Identifying, disseminating, and promoting emerging best practices

Beyond country-specific activities, PPIAF supports broad initiatives aimed at identifying, disseminating, and promoting best practices in private sector involvement in infrastructure and disseminating and promoting those practices to the international community. These initiatives may include toolkits, conferences, case studies, model documents, and other products.

7. Improving the creditworthiness of sub-national entities

PPIAF provides technical assistance grants to support local governments and other sub-national entities that want to access financing for infrastructure improvements from banks or bond markets without relying on sovereign guarantees; obtain a credit rating—or improve their rating—from a recognized credit rating agency; or take measures to enhance their creditworthiness to potential lenders with a view to achieving one of the above.