Madagascar – Regional Project for Strengthening the PPP Environment to Promote Private Investment (PREPIP)

The Regional Project for Strengthening the PPP Environment to Promote Private Investment (PREPIP) is in response to requests from the authorities of the four countries for Bank support to build the capacity to strengthen the PPP environment and promote private investment. More specifically, the Bank's intervention is justified by the critical needs of the four countries, which are grappling with structuring and implementing effective public-private partnerships due to their often-embryonic PPP regulatory frameworks and face major structural challenges, including lack of technical and institutional capacity, constrained governance and perceived risky investment environments. These constraints hamper their ability to attract the private investment needed to finance critical infrastructure and accelerate their economic development. In addition, these countries exhibit significant vulnerabilities due to factors such as political instability, low economic resilience, social and gender inequalities and climate change impacts. In light of such a context marked by growing infrastructure needs, exacerbated by budgetary constraints and fragile socio-economic environments, it is urgent to build the institutional capacities of these countries, provide them with the appropriate technical support needed to seize investment opportunities and avoid exacerbating their structural weaknesses. Lastly, the selection of these four (4) countries is the result of a prior assessment by the Bank of the legal framework of certain regional member countries. The project comprises three (3) components, namely: (i) support for strengthening the PPP environment; (ii) strengthening private sector participation in PPPs; and (iii) project management. It will enable the Bank to pursue efforts it has already initiated in the four countries to strengthen the PPP environment and promote the private sector through the various afore mentioned operations and to support the maturation of projects of interest to the Bank.