View source for Public Private Partnerships (PPP)

[[File:PPP photo.png|thumb|right|200px|A consumer inserts her token in the Grundfos LIFELINK water kiosk, Kenya. Photo: [http://www.waterservicesthatlast.org/media/publications/public_private_partnerships_for_rural_water_services PPP for Rural Water Services, Briefing Note No. 4]]]
{{#ev:youtube|2sNCAPdxkJs|200|right|<center><font size="2">Action for Access: Public-Private<br> Finance in Water and Sanitation</font></center>}}
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The public sector might not be able to cope with the challenges regarding sanitation and water management and therefore cooperates with the private sector through a "partnership". Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) are partnerships between the public sector and the private sector for the purposes of designing, planning, financing, constructing and/or operating projects, which would be regarded traditionally as falling within the remit of the public sector. A key objective of a PPP is to allocate responsibility to the person(s) best placed to manage and deal with the task. Certain responsibilities may be more effectively managed by the private sector rather than the public sector.

Community management as well, the dominant model for rural domestic water service, works in many contexts but faces several critical challenges, particularly in regard to more complex water supplies. An alternative is to delegate operations and maintenance, or maintenance only, to the private sector through formal contracts and performance agreements. These public-private partnerships (PPPs) potentially harness market incentives to improve service delivery and leverage private capital for investment costs.

Rural water PPPs have proliferated in recent years mainly for piped schemes, less often for handpumps and other point-source supplies. Well-designed rural water PPPs have shown some success in countries with civil law—that is, legal systems that have statutes and codes regulating public service contracting. Proof that this model will deliver sustainable rural water supplies at scale, however, awaits more data on long-term costs, profitability, and performance. So far, most
countries have not demanded significant investments in infrastructure from their private partners, and thus external capital financing is still needed.


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! width="50%" style="background:#efefef;" | Advantages
! style="background:#f0f8ff;" | Disadvantages
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| valign="top" | - PPPs enable the public sector to profit by financial, business and other types of knowledge and skills and an innovative entrepreneurial approach in project implementation and management<br>
- PPPs open up opportunities for private investments<br>
- Functions can be delegated through PPPs<br>
- PPP contracts assure fairness of contracting parties<br>
| valign="top" | - Preparation and implementation of PPPs is a lengthy and expensive process<br>
- Many stakeholders: might lead to disagreements about the change process<br>
- Contract design needs to be deliberate and is therefore very complex<br>
- One of the contracting parties might exploit missing conditions of the contract<br>
- There is a dispute of whether public goods such as water and sanitation should be (partly) privatised. Affordable services to all parts of society must be guaranteed
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