Weekly insights on how to perform when it matters | High-stakes decisions. Real situations. No BS. | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
ERROR: Good PPP not found
|
Dakar–Diamniadio. A toll road. It reduced a journey of around 90 minutes to approximately 25. It opened on time. Within budget. Traffic exceeded expectations. And it became one of Africa’s best-known PPP case studies. So, naturally, “experts” looked at the contract. The financing. The risk allocation. The concessionaire. All important. But many were missing the secret sauce. Senegal spent around ten years preparing the project before the road opened. Ten years. Not ten PowerPoint presentations. Ten years. These guys knew they needed to do it right and that they had just one shoot. So, no rushed procurement announced by a minister who wanted a ribbon to cut before the next election. But, ten years of turning a difficult project into an investable one. The government made it a genuine priority. One agency was given responsibility for driving it. Public institutions were forced to coordinate… yes!! Coordination! This is amazing! Users and affected communities were consulted. The toll was tested against what people could actually afford. The government contributed funding rather than pretending that private finance could make the public cost disappear… you know… that thing of “let’s pass all the risk to the greedy guys” And an experienced concessionaire was selected to build and operate the road. There were problems. Of course. And that’s part of the case study. Resettlement was difficult. Some associated works were delayed. The public contribution was significant. It was not a magical project. It was a managed project. And that is the lesson. Good PPPs are rarely the result of an extraordinary contract. They are the result of ordinary things being done properly: A real problem. A committed client. Clear responsibility. Serious preparation. Competent partners. And enough time. You know, I’m biased. But this time, the project was not successful because it was a PPP. The PPP was successful because the project had been prepared to succeed. There is a difference. A very expensive one. More learnings about PPPs, below. ​THE ROOM: 15 Great Lessons of a Successful PPP Project​ ​THE ROOM: The 15 Top Lessons of a PPP Project Nightmare​ ​THE ROOM: How to Break Into PPPs (Without the Bullshit)​ ​The ROOM: The ONLY way of doing a proper procurement process​ ​THE ROOM: Back-to-Back PPP Gap Analysis Explained​ ​THE ROOM: The Top 10 Errors That Kill Your PPP Deal​ ​THE ROOM: How to Deal with Frustrating Lenders' Approvals in PPPs.​ ​THE ROOM: THE ROOM: Minimum size for a PPP Project​ ​THE ROOM: Buildings in PPP - Discussions with an African colleague​ ​THE ROOM: Key Challenges and Solutions in PPP Highway Projects - 5 Clauses You Should Improve​ Or… of course, you can have them all… and many other interesting lessons in The Room. ​The Room​ PD 1: If you liked this email, don't keep it in secret and forward it to a friend. They will thank you enormously one day. PD 2: If somebody has sent you this email and you want to receive emails like this yourself, visit vicentevalencia.com PD 3: If you want unsubscribe, click the link below. |
Vicente Valencia
Weekly insights on how to perform when it matters | High-stakes decisions. Real situations. No BS. | 👇JOIN +2k readers 👇
I have a friend. A colleague. She is very interested in putting her knowledge to work. On her own. In the consulting space. I always tell her that selling air conditioners probably has a much better future. You know. Climate change. Installation fees. Recurring maintenance revenue. All that. But she loves infrastructure. Let her be. She wanted to know how to create a service for a particular government agency. My answer was simple. Ask them what they need. Do not spend three months creating a...
Governments love plans. Ten-year plans. Twenty-year plans. In NZ, we are bold and we have now even a thirty-year plans. A great recollection of projects, without a vision. But still… Beautiful documents. Pipelines. Strategies. Dashboards. Digital systems. All useful. They normally forget one small thing… Very small… Almost invisible… Someone still needs to do the work. That’s it. Someone needs to understand the information. Challenge the assumptions. Structure the project. Run the...
You don’t need to be loud to be powerful. But you do need to stop hiding behind safe opinions. Mainstream opinions. Collaboration. Governance. Value for money. Quality. Those words per se mean nothing. They have been used so much that they have become empty. Give me an example. Be specific. What exactly do you mean? Give me your definition. If you believe something deeply, say it. Stand by it. Own it. And own the reaction too. The people who matter won’t always agree with you. But they will...