Private financial flows to developing countries, such as debt,equity, remittances, and private charitable giving, have increaseddramatically over the past 20 years. One commentator has eventrumpeted the privatization of foreign aid. Since privatecharitable giving remains small and developing...

Drawing on the Bank's Private Participation in Infrastructure Project Database, this Note reviews developments in 2003. Data for the year show that investment in projects with private participation, totaled almost U$S 50 billion - back to 1994 levels. About 100 projects reached financial...

Over the past decade most developing economies have involved the private sector in providing infrastructure services. Indeed, between 1990 and 2002, 136 low- and middle-income countries introduced private participation in infrastructure sectors-65 of them in at least three sectors. During that...

This Note looks at systems some governments have used to transform unsolicited proposals for private infrastructure projects into competitively tendered projects. It focuses on the policies that Chile, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, and South Africa have adopted for managing such...

As governments struggle with rising health care costs, public-private partnerships in constructing and managing public hospitals can provide innovative ways to control costs and improve service. Experience shows that such partnerships offer significant benefits as long as policymakers structure...

During the 1990s developing countries increasingly turned to the private sector for construction, management, and maintenance of toll roads. Between 1990 and 1999, US$61 billion of private investment was committed to 279 projects in 26 developing countries, comprising 34,369 kilometers of toll...

Regulators of concessions in newly privatized infrastructure sectors typically start the price control process with limited sectoral and corporate data. To move toward more realistic regulatory targets, they must ensure that this information base grows and that their ability to process it...

Private activity in infrastructure - as measured by investment flows to projects with private participation - grew dramatically in developing countries between 1990 and 1997, from about US$16 billion to US$120 billion. It then declined by about a fifth to US$95 billion in 1998, a result of the...

Should a conceding authority auction off or negotiate a contract for an exclusive private infrastructure deal? Advocates of negotiation often argue that a formal competition may take too much time, that the costs of preparing bids may be excessive, and that innovation may be discouraged. But...

Infrastructure concession contracts set out the performance obligations and rights of concessionaires and the incentives and risks under which they operate, including pricing arrangements. The clarity with which these terms can be defined determines whether there is likely to be renegotiations...