Sustainable Development: Is there a role for public–private partnerships?

The document examines the rise of public-private partnerships (PPPs) as a mechanism for funding public infrastructure and services. While acknowledging benefits such as private sector expertise and off-budget funding, it highlights significant drawbacks, including higher long-term costs, reduced transparency, and a lack of sustainability criteria. The author argues that PPPs have not yet delivered on their potential for long-term sustainability and suggests that they should be redesigned to stimulate green growth and embed environmental and social safeguards across their entire life cycle.

• PPPs are widely used by governments to secure off-budget funding and private sector expertise for public works, a trend expected to continue as jurisdictions face cash shortages following the 2007/2008 global financial crisis.
• Between 1990 and 2009, the European Union saw over 1,300 PPP contracts valued at more than €5 million, with a total capital value exceeding €250 billion; additionally, approximately 350 projects worth nearly €70 billion reached financial closure in the EU since 2007.
• Current PPP practices are primarily driven by "best value for money" principles, which often neglect environmental and social safeguards and fail to trigger positive domestic economic externalities.
• PPPs present several disadvantages, including higher long-term costs due to private borrowing rates, reduced accountability because private funding is often absent from public records, and high transaction costs that limit competition.
• Case studies demonstrate that PPPs can achieve sustainability goals if properly structured, such as a sustainable solid waste landfill in Vancouver, Canada, and a rural solar electrification programme in Morocco.
• There is a risk that governments adopt PPPs for their attractive initial budgetary optics, even though long-term costs may eventually exceed the initial savings once government payments are activated.
• To enable PPPs to support sustainable development, the public sector must increase its specialized capacity and shift from treating environmental impact assessments as mere licensing requirements to integrating sustainability across the entire PPP life cycle.

APA

Colverson, S., & Perera, O. (2011). Sustainable Development: Is there a role for public–private partnerships? International Institute for Sustainable Development. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/sust_markets_PB_PPP.pdf

Chicago

Colverson, Samuel, and Oshani Perera. Sustainable Development: Is there a role for public–private partnerships? International Institute for Sustainable Development, 2011. https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/sust_markets_PB_PPP.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Colverson |first1=Samuel |last2=Perera |first2=Oshani |title=Sustainable Development: Is there a role for public–private partnerships? |publisher=International Institute for Sustainable Development |date=October 2011 |url=https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/sust_markets_PB_PPP.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{colverson2011sustainable, author = {Colverson, Samuel and Perera, Oshani}, title = {{Sustainable Development: Is there a role for public–private partnerships?}}, institution = {International Institute for Sustainable Development}, year = {2011}, month = oct, url = {https://www.iisd.org/system/files/publications/sust_markets_PB_PPP.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }