Donors reaffirm their commitment as PPIAF enters its 25 Anniversary Year and marks the integration of GI Hub

The Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF) held its Partnership Council Meeting in Vienna, Austria this June. This meeting brought together PPIAF’s esteemed donors and welcomed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as the newest donor to PPIAF with their contribution that has supported the integration of the Global Infrastructure Hub (GI Hub) into the PPIAF family.

Over the two days, PPIAF engaged in a packed agenda where donors expressed appreciation for the impactful and relevant programs PPIAF delivers.

The meeting highlighted PPIAF's impressive results for FY24, showcasing an investment of $7.4 million allocated to 27 projects closed in FY21. These projects significantly enhanced the capacity of 23 institutions, including 11 subnational entities, trained over 500 government officials, supported the adoption of more than 20 regulations, and the issuance of 5 credit ratings for subnational contracting parties. Additionally, results showed that, so far, PPIAF facilitated the training of 15,600 government officials through the PPP Certification Program. This year, PPIAF supported the completion of one PPI infrastructure transaction, catalyzing over $260 million in private capital investment and helping one subnational entity leverage $163 million in financing without sovereign guarantees.

PPIAF's long-standing support in Ethiopia was externally evaluated, revealing very positive results. From 2002 to 2023, PPIAF conducted 12 sectoral activities in energy, water, telecommunications, transportation, solid waste, and irrigation, alongside 4 multisectoral activities for national and local institutions, with a total investment of $2.79 million. PPIAF has also been instrumental in bolstering private sector involvement in Ethiopia's infrastructure development. It has supported the establishment and refinement of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) framework and helped develop a PPP pipeline of 34 projects, particularly in the energy and transport sectors. PPIAF also supported municipalities in bolstering revenue generation and integrate climate resilience into infrastructure development.

Notable achievements include:

• The establishment of a regulatory authority (ECA) underpinning the liberalization of the telecommunications sector, enabling the introduction of Safaricom as the second operator. Safaricom bid USD 850 million for the license with a pledged investment in telecommunications infrastructure of USD 8 billion over the following ten years.
• Supporting the resilience of the water sector in Addis Ababa, with the conclusion of a $15.4 million, four-year Performance-Based Contract (PBC) for Non-Revenue Water (NRW) reduction
• Supported the conclusion of two O&M contracts irrigation projects such as the Megech-Seraba ($6.2 million) and Ribb ($15 million).
• At the local level, PPIAF partnered with municipalities to enhance their revenue generation, in four of the five municipalities that recently benefited from PPIAF's support (Hawassa, Adama, Bahir Dar, and Addis Ababa), revenues increased by more than 300%, between 2017 and 2022.

The Partnership Council endorsed FY25 PPIAF Workplan with emphasis on the macroeconomic constraints and how PPIAF is trying to maximize the delivery of its Renew Strategy within this context. The workplan commits PPIAF to continue to focus on programmatic engagements that deliver impact and mainstream climate and gender in infrastructure development.

This year marks an exciting new phase with the approval of the new global knowledge strategy that brings together the comparative advantages of GI Hub and PPIAF in an unprecedented opportunity to strengthen our capacity to create and disseminate global knowledge. PPIAF will significantly ramp up its programming for global knowledge in FY25. With the integration of the GI Hub, PPIAF has been joined by a team dedicated to advancing global knowledge for infrastructure, this will enable a strategic combination of existing products and tools and will facilitate the co-creation of new knowledge products that are both replicable and scalable across countries. This will expand PPIAF’s outreach and global presence including engagement at the G20, as well as the breadth of global tools and resources that can be offered to WBG client countries on private participation in infrastructure.

We extend our heartfelt thanks to all our donors for their continued partnership and commitment which are invaluable to the success of our mission! Together, we are making a significant impact in sustainable infrastructure finance.