for the airport or port sectors where many countries have tried but few have succeeded outside of Latin America in getting the private sector to take over the business or at least part of it— e.g. container handling, stevedoring or warehousing. As for railways, according to Jane’s World Railways (2004), as of 2003, out of the 131 countries with a railways system only about 25% have some type of private participation in major operations or management.<sup>4</sup> The variance is however high varying from over 50% of African and Latin American countries to less than 5 % in Eastern Europe.<sup>5</sup> As for OECD countries, the usual differences between anglo-saxon and non anglo-saxon countries prevail, with the first group dominated by private operation while the public sector continues to run the trains in the second one.

The assessment of the water sector is more complex. In many countries, this activity is often decentralized and municipalities have the main responsibility for its provision. Historically, large utilities have tended to concentrate on the needs of the largest cities— cream skimming also takes place in the public sector-- and have left the local governments to address their needs and to find local solution with or without technical support from the national government. In that context, there is plenty of evidence that the private sector has been involved for quite long through small service contracts in rural areas and in secondary areas where public and private utilities, have often not managed or wanted to go.<sup>6</sup> As for its role in larger utilities, it is distributed between management contracts, affermages and concessions.

Ultimately, the factual evidence suggests that the flirting with PPPI has led to fewer wedding bells than often argued or assumed. PPPI has worked for the higher income groups across sectors but even there, many governments have been reluctant to tie the knot. More troublesome is the fact that PPPI has been much less effective than often believed in the poorest LDCs. Only one in three or four countries of the poorest countries have been successful in getting the private sector interested in participating in the financing of the developments of their infrastructure needs. This means that for the vast majority of the countries the government has continued to be the main actor in the sector. Moreover, the unmet hope for more PPI has probably left a bigger financing gap than often appreciated.

# **4. The promises of PPPI**

Many very diverse, often inconsistent, promises have been made in the context of reforms leading to PPPI. The most common ones can be summarized as follows:

- Contribution to fiscal stabilization

- Increased investments

- Improved efficiency from a more competitive environment

- Contribution to growth

- Better access and affordability for residential users

- Improved governance

> 4 Based on country specific descriptions  from Jane’ World Railways  Yearbook (2003-2004), available (for a fee!) at <u>http://catalog.janes.com/catalog/public/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.ProductInfoBrief&product_id=115</u> 5 For a recent overview of progress in the transport sector,  see Estache and Serebrisky (2004)

> 6 Collignon and Vezina (2000)

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