Private Sector Participation in Urban Public Services: Comparison of Laws and Institutions in MENA Countries

This paper is based on a presentation made at the Urban Environment Workshop on the Mayor’s responsibility for providing efficient services, organized by the World Bank Knowledge Networks Agency for MENA in cooperation with the city of Marseille (Alexandria, Egypt, 6 March 2006).
The paper is meant to be a quick source on key legal and institutional issues in the MENA region when it comes to private sector participation in urban water, wastewater and solid waste services. As such, practitioners and policymakers at the municipal and city level are its target audience. But it can also help experts at the national and international level to better understand the issues at stake.
The paper is not a comprehensive study covering all legal and institutional aspects and all countries in the MENA region. It aims at addressing the main problems observed on a selected number of countries, which have an outstanding role in the development of private sector participation. The information on contracts with the private sector in the different countries has been collected to the best knowledge of the author. The document has been updated and completed with comments and input received from participants of the workshop as well as from various World Bank staff working in the MENA region.