International Public-Private Partnership Policies: Convergence in Themes from ASEAN, the European Union, IMF, OECD, the UN, and the World Bank

This paper focuses on how international public‐private partnership (PPP) policies are formulated and implemented by international organizations. PPPs for infrastructure projects are relevant and present in many countries around the world. The literature is full of studies of individual countries and various aspects of PPPs governance and finance. But what has been less emphasized in the literature is the way in which international organizations have been developing and promoting policies for PPPs. This paper makes a first attempt in trying to describe and analyze the way international organizations make policy for PPPs and to focus on perception issues related to their actions. The research questions are: How do international organizations make policy for PPPs? Do the PPP policies from international organizations converge on the same kind of themes? The theoretical lenses used will be from theories of the policy process, including the Advocacy Coalition Framework and process tracing in historical institutionalism. The empirical focus will be on international organizations’ approaches to PPPs. The paper examines policy papers from selected international organizations, including the the ASEAN countries, the European Union, International Monetary Fund, OECD, UN, and the World Bank. The methodology is to examine the most recent policy papers (documents and reports) and compare their content. The hypothesis of the paper is that international organizations converge on roughly the same themes, and that there seem to be overall agreement about the main messages and recommendations for the use of PPPs in infrastructure projects. International organizations also cooperate on certain issues in policy development for PPPs. But each organization likes to promote its own tool for PPP project scrutiny. This is not necessarily a problem, but it does beg the question if a broad policy consensus on PPPs is within reach. The paper will contribute knowledge on the degree to which international organizations’ PPP policies converge.