The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) sponsored PPP Certification training for the first time last week. The Foundation level training, aimed at candidates from public sector institutions in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, was delivered at EBRD’s premises in Belgrade by Andrés Rebollo, Lead Author of the PPP Program Guide and the CEO at Knowledge-Infrastructure, an accredited training provider. Trainees from ministries and municipalities were joined by candidates from state owned banks and EBRD staff, who are all involved in infrastructure PPP projects across numerous sectors in the region.
The interactive training sessions which were conducted over 3 days, included presentations and references to real PPP projects from across the world as well as exam simulations. The training has received very positive feedback from the candidates who all went on to take the Foundation exam at the end of the course with the aim of clearing ‘the first hurdle’ to become a Certified PPP Professional (CP3P).
One of the EBRD candidates, Marek Waskiewicz from the Infrastructure Project Preparation Facility (IPPF) commented: “One of the key learnings from the session was that the more studying candidates had done in advance, the more they benefited from the training and the more successful they were when taking the exam. Covering Chapter 1 of the PPP Program Guide was a key element of this preparation, regardless of the level of their previous PPP experience.“
Marek considered the training to be very successful overall and is very pleased to report that a number of candidates have already enquired about going on to take the higher level, Preparation exam. EBRD hopes to organise more training sessions in other countries in the future. Candidates from as far afield as Kazakhstan, Turkey, Jordan, Tunisia and Egypt have already expressed interest in participating in further training.