Water infrastructure: World experience of arranging financing reviewed

The public sector funds come under pressure from competing demands of development financing and, therefore, globally the emphasis is shifting towards greater involvement of the private sector in the financing and development of infrastructure projects.
This was crux of a workshop organised by the World Bank on Thursday. The workshop reviewed international experience of arranging financing for water infrastructure. Case studies from around the world were presented to assess the current trends in finance.
The development of water infrastructure such as reservoirs, water-transfer and hydropower projects etc has traditionally been a public sector responsibility. Until recently the financing of such works has been almost exclusively from public sources. However in many parts of the world the situation is changing and the public and private sectors are increasingly being called upon to work together in ways that they have not done in the past.
In the water sector these changes have not been easy because of the size and complexity of the projects. As a result, private financing has been relatively difficult to access. Part of the problem has been a lack of understanding of the issues arising in what are now often referred to as "Public-Private Partnership (PPP)".
The workshop was told that many governments across the world have felt the need to modify their protocols for private sector involvement in order to attract more interest. Gradually the number of privately financed projects has increased, and there is now a growing pool of experience from which lessons can be drawn.
Various sessions of the workshop were attended by officials from the federal and provincial governments, representatives from private sector companies, chambers of commerce and industry, commercial banks, and law firms.