Nigeria's Public-Private Partnerships Successes and Failures
Since 1999 the Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF) has supported the Nigerian government in facilitating private sector infrastructure investments in the port, water, and energy sectors. PPIAF commissioned an independent impact assessment in February 2016 to review past technical assistance; identify and validate legal, institutional, and policy reform outcomes encouraging private participation in infrastructure; and assess impacts of public- private partnership (PPP) projects. The port sector showed measurable satisfactory results for efficiency and income gains. The water and energy sectors, however, fell short at the regulatory level, with success and failure tied to stakeholder engagement and a functioning institutional framework having well-identified and coordinated public and private stakeholders.
With an estimated population of 182 million and GDP of US$481 billion in 2015, Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country and largest economy, yet still faces infrastructure challenges, having committed US$38.96 billion in infrastructure investments since 2000, with 37 active PPP projects under construction or in operation as of December 2015. The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2015 ranked Nigeria’s infrastructure score 133rd out of 140 countries. Nigeria’s PPP readiness shows a mixed performance, as scored by the World Bank Group’s Benchmarking PPP Procurement 2017.4 Though performing better than other Sub- Saharan African countries, Nigeria scored worse than other low-to-middle-income economies in two dimensions of the benchmarking analysis: PPP preparation and contract management.
