A two-day Public-Private Partnership Workshop from 16th to 17th October 2018, was organised by the Global Infrastructure Hub, in collaboration with the Infrastructure Regulatory Commission (ICRC), Norton Rose Fulbright and Olaniwun Ajayi LP, in Abuja.In attendance were PPP practitioners from Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Namibia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa and Uganda.
The workshop was organised to equip stakeholders with the Global Infrastructures Hub’s PPP Risk-Allocation Tools with discussions revolving around some of the risks that are key to bankability and how they could be addressed.
Vice President of Nigeria Yemi Osinbajo spoke at the opening of the workshop, stressed on the centrality of risk-allocation principles in Public-Private Partnership (PPP) in infrastructural contracts. Osinbajo said PPPs were imperative in government’s quest to finance, build and manage infrastructures because government does not have the resources to accomplish its desire to provide critical infrastructure for the people. He noted, however, that “managing these PPPs through stakeholder management, performance monitoring, refinancing, re-negotiation, and disputes were probably as crucial for governments as the PPPs themselves. He commended the Global Infrastructure Hub for developing the PPP Risk Allocation and PPP Contract Management Tools and for dedicating the workshop to the dissemination of the tools for the West African region.
Senior Manager of the Global Infrastructure Hub, Morag Baird, said the investment gap to meet the infrastructure needs in Nigeria as in other countries of Africa and elsewhere in the world was huge. “Global infrastructure outlook has forecast that the infrastructure needs on the African continent between now and 2040 is $7.6 trillion.
Welcoming the participants, the Acting Director-General of the ICRC, Mr. Chidi Izuwa, said the workshop was the first of its kind in any part of the world.
A Memorandum of Understanding was also signed between the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission, ICRC, and the Global Infrastructure, Hub, GIH, to advance the delivery of infrastructure in Nigeria and Africa.