CFP: Handbook on PPPs in developing and emerging economies

[entrepreneurship-phd at lists.uni-due.de]

From: João Carlos Correia Leitão [mailto:jleitao71 at gmail.com] 
Date: Wed 27 Apr 2016 14:51


Dear Colleague,
I hope this message finds you well. 

I am now formally circulating a Call for a “Handbook on PPPs in developing and emerging economies” to be published by Emerald in early 2017.

The first deadline for abstract submission is June 15, 2016. 
Please do not hesitate to spread the word and send it to interested colleagues, or to contact us in case of any query.
Many thanks.
Kindest regards,
João Carlos Correia Leitão
(on behalf of the editors) 


_____________________________________________________________

Universidade da Beira Interior (UBI)

Gabinete dos Alumni da UBI 

CEG-IST, Centre for Management Studies of the Instituto Superior Técnico 
Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal

C-MAST, Centre for Mechanical and Aerospace Science and Technologies, 
Universidade da Beira Interior, Covilhã, Portugal 
_______________________________________________________________



*****

Handbook on PPPs in developing and emerging economies
 

Editors: João Leitão (University of Beira Interior, Portugal); Elsa de Morais Sarmento (Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal); João Aleluia (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific)


For over two decades, the debate on whether Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) bring about benefits for developing and emerging countries has been fueled by a stream of new evidences. The future of sustainable infrastructure and service provision in these regions will depend on the ability of national and local authorities to gauge on their capital and capacity for effective delivery, and on the reliance on partnerships between the public and the private sector. 

During the recent financial crisis, the overall number of PPP projects continued to grow steadily along with financial flows. However, regional concentration of PPP investments in a few economies has been perpetuated, as upper middle income countries are still the major recipients of private participation in infrastructure. 

Today, a considerable amount of capital investment is still needed for infrastructure improvement in less developed countries. The public sector is usually not able, per se, to deliver the resources needed to assure access to basic public goods and services, and private sector engagement is considered essential to close this gap. Many countries have favored the financing of such demands via PPPs, looking for positive impacts on the efficiency, equity and quality of public service provision, through increased competition and the active participation and commitment of private counterparts. Particularly in a context of financial restraint and economic deceleration, PPPs have gained relevance, being perceived as an anti-cyclical instrument to stimulate growth and alleviate poverty. 

PPPs development role needs to be put into perspective and assessed against at least six main criteria: fiscal/financial viability, efficiency, governance, value for money, equity and poverty alleviation, and environmental and social sustainability. Some of its emerging trends relate to greater risk aversion following the financial crisis, the availability of smaller-scale providers, the rising of a variety of new financiers, innovative financial instruments, the role of good governance, a new generation of global goods, and sustainability issues.

Under the current circumstances, it is unlikely that many countries at the bottom of the development pyramid can meet this daunting challenge on their own. Most emerging and developing economies still need to meet international agreed minimum standards for infrastructure and regulatory oversight, this being primarily not a financial challenge, but a problem of good governance and political will. Thus, decisions to invest in developing and emerging economies seem to be relatively more determined by factors related to the institutional environment and governance framework, the economic and political predictability, the market dimension and the end-user purchasing power. Emerging markets also struggle with immature financial markets and a lack of bankable projects as investments in basic infrastructure often require substantial hard currency investments, which compromises local private fund raising. Developing and emerging countries often find themselves struggling to attract FDI in parallel to forming PPPs, as long-term finance needs to come from external financiers. 

Understanding how the international community can better make PPPs work for development by surpassing these obstacles and how best to get developing and emerging countries’ private sector involved in a more inclusive type of growth is critical in times of public finance restraint.


 
Main questions:
1. Do PPPs work for the poor in developing and emerging economies?
2. What are the drivers of success and failure of PPPs implementation in developing and emerging economies?
3. How are efficiency gains distributed and what do they depend upon?
4. How much does public policy, governance and sustainability matter to ensure readiness and absorption of PPPs?
5. How can outcomes, impacts and lessons learned be better monitored, evaluated and internalized?
6. What is the trend across sectors and regions, and what can be expected on the way forward?
Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
A. Understanding PPPs in developing and emerging countries
   The international context and the developing world: globally convergent or a divergent phenomenon?
A. Making PPPs work the poor
Principles for PPP effectiveness and efficiency in developing and emerging countries; impact of private participation in hard and soft infrastructure on equity (access and affordability) and poverty alleviation; the role of donors and international financial institutions; additionality issues.
A. Public policy, public management practices and entrepreneurship
Strategic approaches to infrastructure investment, FDI and PPPs; Managing PPPs and governance issues: Modernization of public approaches and development of public administrative capacity; Lifting constraints to encourage private sector investment and the government’s role; Delivering tangible improvement in public services.
A. Implementation of PPPs: practical considerations
Partnering for value; Risks and Challenges; Common inhibitors in developing countries; Specific pro-poor activities in PPPs; Tools for optimal pricing and project design; Private sector financing and emerging capital markets; Sectoral and regional perspectives.
A. Empirical analysis of determinants of PPP performance
B. Case studies of successful and failed PPP Projects
Monitoring and Evaluation of PPPs; Frameworks for measuring, monitoring and reporting on results; Performance measurement problems; Additionality and relevance issues for donors and financiers; Lessons learned for PPP design and use and emerging best practices.
A. Going forward: towards more sustainable PPPs
Global Goods, Regulation, Climate Change, Sustainability; New governance models; Innovative financial instruments; Trends in private sector participation in infrastructure across sectors and regions.
A. Sectors: hard and soft sectors (infrastructure, health, education, environment, climate change, etc.), non-financial PPPs.
 
Submission Procedures Deadline: June 15, 2016
Interested authors are invited to submit a 1-2 pages chapter proposal (in MS-Word or PDF) clearly explaining the paper’s objectives, methodology and contribution to the theme to the following email: jleitao at ubi.pt. Please include all authors’ name, affiliation and contact. Authors of accepted abstracts will be later sent chapter guidelines.  Feedback on proposals will be provided by June 30, 2016.
 
Full chapters due: August 30, 2016
Authors are responsible for submitting a well-written and edited final draft to the editor, 6.000 to 7.000 words long, written in APA style. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this project. 
 
Publisher
This book is scheduled to be published in 2017 by Emerald Group Publishing.
 
Important Dates
Chapter proposal deadline: June 15, 2016
Data for chapter acceptance: June 30, 2016
Full chapters due: August 30, 2016
 
Inquiries: jleitao at ubi.pt; elsa.sarmento at gmail.com; aleluia.joao at gmail.com
 
*****