Striving for the Quality of Public Services through Public-Private Partnerships : The Case of 7 Projects in the City of Warsaw

Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) have become an innovative solution to realize three critical strategic issues for improving the quality of urban services: the enhancement of governmental financing capacities, the improvement of public investment efficiency, and the harnessing of consumer-orientated management expertise. This article traces the processes embarked upon by the City of Warsaw, with a view to examining how to engage the private sector in PPPs for the benefit of society. The article describes the background of seven projects, the process of selection and planning, and conclusions concerning prerequisites for satisfactory completion. The article also presents the PPPs' strengths of bringing together multiple stakeholders and distributing risk among them, the benefits of engaging external advisers, and the necessity of establishing quality performance measurements and termination conditions in the contract. It offers an important perspective upon the potential of PPPs in the transitional countries of Eastern and Central Europe as an effective mechanism to both develop infrastructure and improve the quality of public services