UNECE Conference Launches Capacity-Building Programme
for PPPs
International Conference on
‘Knowledge Sharing and Capacity Building on
Promoting Successful PPPs in the UNECE Region’
(Tel Aviv, Israel, 5-8 June 2007)
Geneva, 15 June 2007 -- Throughout the UNECE region,
public-private partnerships (PPPs) have become an important ingredient
in international economic policy. Yet PPPs require a blend of different
skills as well as changes within the public administration. In
particular, the lack of knowledge, skills, and training of government
officials in PPPs constitutes a main obstacle to their development.
This topic was the primary theme for a conference held in Tel Aviv,
Israel, which was organized by the Government of Israel and the
UNECE Committee on Economic Cooperation and Integration (CECI).
The conference attracted over 300 participants representing public
and private sectors from around 30 countries in the UNECE region,
representatives from the UN Economic and Social Commission for
Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and the UN Economic Commission for
Africa (UNECA), as well as the European Bank for Reconstruction
and Development (EBRD); and as a result of the conference, a capacity
building programme for PPPs was launched.
Opening the conference, Israel’s Vice Prime Minister and
Minister of Foreign Affairs Tzipi Livni identified PPPs as
a new vehicle for providing public services:
“In the past we used to live in a world of traditional
arrangements: the first sector - governments - providing public
services, with limited governmental resources, while the second
sector - private businesses - were responsible solely for the bottom
line of their profits at the end of the year. Entering the new
millennium, we have entered a new world, where social responsibility
has become an issue for private businesses, creating the third
sector - first by understanding the importance of the social environment
for their profits and success and then by a genuine will to contribute
to the society we live in.”
Ms Livni stressed however that the PPP process does not reduce
the responsibility of the public sector. “Governments”,
she said,“ should continue to bear the prime responsibility
of attending to public needs and provide safety nets for the people
while cooperating with the private sector.”
Mr. Paolo Garonna, Deputy Executive Secretary of the UNECE, echoed
these words with the following assessment: “Having succeeded
to implement a number of socially inclusive projects that have
contributed to economic prosperity, Israel is an ideal host for
a conference on PPPs. We can learn much from her experience.”
In addition to the two-day conference, where leaders from businesses,
governments, and international organizations across the UNECE region
discussed project ideas in sectors such as transport, water, energy
and social services, a great deal of work also occurred in regards
to developing new advances in PPP capacity building and knowledge
sharing. Importantly, a wide-ranging review of national experiences
and lessons learned in PPPs led to a discussion of a framework
for evaluating the performance and contribution of PPPs to economic
development and competitiveness in both transition and advanced
market economies.
These dialogues created substantial progress in finalising A
Guidebook on Promoting Good Governance in PPPs as well as
by initiating a comparative review on the performance of PPPs
in advanced market economies and in transition economies. The
conference participants also approved a concluding
document that
provided policy suggestions and recommendations for follow-ups
to the conference, including launching a new initiative that
would train at least 200 officials from public and private sectors
from UNECE region countries with economies in transition while
working with partners such as the EBRD and the European Union
(EU).
In addition, site visits provided the participants with the opportunity
to talk directly with the senior officials and project managers
of fully operational PPP projects while seeing for themselves first-hand
how PPPs are contributing to economic prosperity in Israel. Among
the sites visited were the following: The Weizmann Institute of
Science, The Ashkelon Desalination Plant, Ashkelon Technological
Industries, Highway 6: The Cross-Israel Highway, and The Light
Train of Tel Aviv.
All conference attendees were invited to continue their discussions
via the CECI Virtual Platform for the exchange of information on
PPPs, as well as to participate in the upcoming Ministerial Conference
on PPPs to be held in the Republic of Korea, in close collaboration
with UNESCAP, on 2-5 October 2007. This latter conference as well
as the one in Israel are regional events that are part of a UN
Development Account Project on Capacity Building in PPPs for sustainable
development in which UNESCAP, UNECA and UNECE are cooperating in
elaborating PPP training tools.
For additional information please contact:
Mr. Geoffrey Hamilton
Senior Economic Affairs Officer
UNECE Economic Cooperation and Integration Division
Palais des Nations
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Phone: +41 (0)22 917 2838
Fax: +41 (0)22 917 0178
E-mail: [email protected]
For documentation, please see the website: http://www.unece.org/ceci/ppp.html
Ref: ECE/ECID/07/P03