slow and started in the early 1990s —starting with projects in South Africa and Côte d’Ivoire in 1990. It eventually spread to 41 of the 48 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, most recently Botswana and Somalia in 2011 and 2013, respectively. According to the World Bank’s Private Participation in Infrastructure (PPI) database there are 335 PPP infrastructure projects in Sub-Saharan Africa that have reached financial closure<sup>20</sup> in the last 25 years. Burundi, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Mauritania, the Seychelles, South Sudan, and Swaziland did not have any PPPs throughout this period.

Although many SSA countries started early, they never produced another PPP after their first one — e.g. Central African Republic (1991), Guinea-Bissau (1991) and DRC (1995). The most active countries in the region are South Africa (85 projects), Nigeria (35), Kenya (22) and Uganda (22). There were 9 countries that have only produced one PPP, and another 13 that have produced only two or three in the last 25 years. The low number of PPPs in these countries can be attributed to the fact that some are small economies, others have been in conflict for several years or they have a weak legal and regulatory framework to procure and implement PPPs (The World Bank 2017).

The number of PPP infrastructure projects in SSA is a relatively small proportion of the total number of projects in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies (EMDE), ranging from 2 to 12 percent. Additionally, PPP investment commitments in Sub-Saharan Africa are also relatively modest: they account for a small portion (2–10%) of PPP commitments in EMDEs. When adjusting the data by the size of the economy, it can be observed that before the Asian Financial crisis (1997-1998), PPP investment as a percentage of GDP was clearly below the average for the rest of the EMDEs, reaching a peak of 0.2 percent in 1997 compared to 1.1% for the rest of the EMDEs. However, after the Asian financial crisis, investment as a percentage of GDP fluctuated between 0.2 and 0.6, closer to the average for the rest of the EMDEs (see Figure 15).

> 20 A PPP is defined as “any contractual arrangement between a public entity or authority and a private entity, for providing a public asset or service, in which the private party bears significant risk and management responsibility.” PPP in infrastructure refers to the energy, transport and water and sanitation sectors as defined by the PPI database (www.ppi.worldbank.org). The definition of financial or contractual closure varies among types of private participation as a result of availability of public information: (a) For _management and lease contracts_ , a contract authorizing the commencement of management or lease service must be signed with the private consortium assuming the operation of the services. (b) For _brownfield_ concession projects, contractual closure is reached when the concession agreement is signed, and the date for taking over the operations is set. (c) For _greenfield projects_ , financial closure is the date that whereby a) there is the existence of a legally binding commitment of equity holders and/or debt financiers to provide or mobilize funding for the full cost of the project; and b) the conditions for funding have been met and the first tranche of funding is mobilized. If this information is not available, the construction start date is used as an estimated financial closure date. (d) For _divestitures_ , the equity holders must have a legally binding commitment to acquire the assets of the facility. Such commitment usually occurs at the signing of the share purchase contract.

_Infrastructure in Sub-Saharan Africa - 30_