World Bank Group Innovation Delivers 10K+ PPP Certifications Worldwide

A pioneering program envisioned by World Bank and IFC colleagues more than a decade ago recently hit the milestone of delivering 10,000 public-private partnership (PPP) certification exams to government officials, independent professionals, and multilateral development bank (MDB) staff around the world. This accomplishment demonstrates innovation, commitment to excellence, collaboration, and a firm fidelity to building capacity.

Why PPP certification?

A key area of the World Bank Group’s work is helping governments make informed decisions about improving the access and quality of infrastructure services. A key area of the World Bank Group’s work is helping governments make informed decisions about improving the access and quality of infrastructure services. This includes using public-private partnerships (PPPs) as one delivery option where appropriate. When resources for funding and expertise are scarce, well-executed PPPs can be a valuable arrow in a government’s quiver.

Yet, creating PPPs that deliver a service well — say, electricity or a transport system — is tough in any market. Balancing the needs of government and the private sector is complicated and requires experience and knowledge. Competing priorities, gaps in understanding, or misunderstanding each party’s needs and constraints are frequent concerns. These can be exacerbated in developing countries, just as the need for good services is more acute and enabling conditions are harder to navigate.

“We found that parties involved in a PPP were often effectively speaking different languages,” said Clive Harris, a lead infrastructure specialist at the World Bank heavily involved in the certification. “It was difficult to find common ground to move projects forward; sometimes we were downright stymied or felt outcomes could be better with shared knowledge and best practices.”

This was a significant roadblock. But it felt surmountable.

A pioneering approach

Harris recalls first ruminating about creating a PPP certification course to achieve this common language and knowledge with colleagues in 2010. The aim was to improve the performance of PPPs by enhancing and standardizing practices across the globe.

What if the World Bank Group developed this certification in the very spirit of PPPs, calling on the expertise of companies already well-versed in delivering certification programs on other topics, while maintaining control of curriculum development to ensure quality and adherence to development principles?  This way, the program could eventually run itself.

Nothing like this had ever been done here. On hearing the concept, colleagues agreed it was a clever idea, though plenty doubted it could be accomplished.

A Certification Dream Team — comprising PPP specialists from the World Bank and IFC, in addition to a dedicated procurement specialist (given the novelty of the approach) — persisted, holding the Bank’s first-ever competitive dialogue to seek out inputs from companies on the ins-and-outs of how certification programs work. The Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF) helped fund this initial sounding and eventually a request for proposals was launched.

APMG International was selected to run the program that officially debuted in 2016.  APMG was compensated upon reaching certain milestones, which meant that there was strong proof of concept when the team took the next step: shopping it to other multilateral development banks (MDBs) for their buy-in. It eventually attracted the support of the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Inter-American Development Bank, and the Islamic Development Bank — with continued support from PPIAF.

The MDBs collectively own the body of knowledge, and some have funded translations. The foundation certification is now available in Albanian, Chinese, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, and Spanish.

Who takes the certification?

Most of the certification’s audience are government officials in PPP units or otherwise involved in infrastructure planning for their countries. When World Bank and IFC colleagues advise these officials, the certification is often recommended to them. The same is true for the other supporting MDBs.

Government uptake of the PPP certification program can be even more robust. Two years ago, Indonesia’s IIGF Institute became the first government entity to become an accredited training organization under APMG’s model — the first time any government moved this expertise in-house. More than 250 Indonesian government officials have since been trained.

Other professionals ripe for the certification include infrastructure operators, lawyers involved in PPP transactions, private PPP advisors, financiers, and MDB staff involved in infrastructure at all levels — creating frameworks, planning programs, selecting and structuring projects, looking at ESG issues, and more.

In fact, to emphasize that the certification was useful to all kinds of PPP-related work, all staff on the World Bank’s PPP team were strongly encouraged to go through the course — taking the foundational exam together.  “It was the first exam I took since university,” joked Harris.

What has the program accomplished?

Feedback from the field has been strong and consistent. “I exercised valuable skills such as project structuring and preparation as well as allocating risks between public and private partners. I did have this knowledge before, I just didn’t know how to apply it correctly,” said Gavkhar Ashirova, a senior expert in the Kyrgyz Republic’s PPP Center, housed in the Ministry of Economy.

And this is emblematic of the response the program has received consistently over the years: it has built stronger hard skills to evaluate PPPs, a consistent lexicon to ease comprehension, and better understanding of each party’s needs to reach mutually beneficial partnerships. All this helps deliver value for money and better services to people across the globe.

What’s next?

The certification is undergoing an update to keep it current and adaptable. This will include material to integrate climate change considerations and lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic as they relate to the ongoing viability of PPPs.

Given the certification program’s formidable origin story and resounding support, there is every expectation that it will evolve to remain the go-to global resource for PPP expertise.