The 2021/22 Infrascope : Evaluating the environment for public-private partnerships in Latin America and the Caribbean

Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, Colombia, Peru, Panama and Costa Rica top the indicators in Infrascope 2021/2022, which evaluates the capacity of countries to mobilize private investment via public-private partnerships. The Infrascope 2021-2022 study finds that Latin American and Caribbean countries have made major strides toward creating environments that favor the emergence of efficient and sustainable public-private partnerships (PPPs) for infrastructure. Brazil and Chile especially stand out in this area, while Colombia, Peru, Panama and Costa Rica also show good performance. In general, the region has already laid the regulatory and institutional foundations for developing PPPs, and countries should now focus on improving project preparation, funding, and risk management, the report says. Infrascope 2021-2022 is the seventh edition in a series of studies conducted every two years by Economist Impact, the analysis arm of The Economist Group, and commissioned by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The new edition of the Infrascope was expanded to include all 26 borrowing member countries of the IDB and features a new indicator framework to reflect the latest developments in PPPs for infrastructure. These developments include social and environmental sustainability, fiscal control and budget planning, transparency and accountability, and new financial instruments. The study found that creating environments to better enable the development and implementation of PPPs for infrastructure is crucial to enhancing the efficiency, sustainability, public-private balance and quality of this mechanism in the region. The study also points out that to develop fiscally viable infrastructure PPPs that are of high financial quality, it is necessary to reduce uncertainty via transparent, consistent and efficient risk allocation, and by applying lessons learned through ongoing project-performance monitoring. It also recommends that countries place more emphasis on sustainability and preparation for the future to ensure economic and social infrastructure will withstand the test of time and climate change.