Region: Global
Country: Global / Non-Specific
Keywords: About PPP **, Knowledge Lab ***
Document Link(s):
Document(s):
- Technical Guidance Note299.73 KB
Document Summary:
This Note introduces key evaluation approaches and methods that can produce credible evidence about the welfare and distributional impacts of infrastructure interventions. Evaluating both types of impact is crucial because the ultimate objective of public policy is to improve the well-being of the population, and particularly that of the poorest and the most vulnerable in society. The Note focuses on infrastructure because across the developing world, inadequate infrastructure remains a major constraint to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the World Bank Group’s (WBG’s) goals of ending extreme poverty by 2030 and promoting shared prosperity (income growth of the bottom 40 percent in every country). To bridge the infrastructure gap, the WBG and other development actors are committed to leveraging all sources of finance, expertise, and solutions, including those of the private sector.
Document Details:
To sum up, assessing the welfare and distributional impacts of infrastructure interventions with private sector participation, whether ex ante or ex post, does not require the invention of new approaches or methods; rather it calls for the judicious application of well-known methods of impact evaluation to measure disaggregated impacts across different socioeconomic groups. In particular, analysts must widen the scope of the evaluation to consider the welfare and distributional implications of the actual or potential mode of financing and the contractual arrangements for service delivery. All these elements, along with the characteristics of the infrastructure itself, influence the casual relationship between the intervention and well-being.
In conclusion, when making decisions about the extent and modalities of private sector participation in infrastructure vis-à-vis the public sector, it is important to consider the tradeoffs between financial viability and equity, or between efficiency and equity. When conducted with a distributional lens, ex ante impact analysis can inform these decisions with evidence about the likely trade-offs associated with different modes of funding and financing. Ex post evaluations have a key role to play as well, by measuring how much of the predicted impacts and trade-offs were realized and enabling actual cost-benefit calculations that can in turn inform the planning and design (and ex ante analysis) of future projects and policies.
Updated: April 12, 2022