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The contract scope and therefore the structure may vary significantly within projects related to the same sector. The following illustrates the main variations in three sectors which are paradigmatic in this sense;

Rail: The PPP scope may include the following:

  • Only the infrastructure (the government retaining the operations through a public state-owned enterprise, such as High Speed Rail [HSR] PPPs in France) or contracting operations out to a different private partner;
  • The delivery of the infrastructure, and rolling stock and operations (for example, all metro and light metro PPPs in Spain[69]), in an integrated manner; and
  • Only rolling stock supply and maintenance, just service operations (with or without rolling stock provision and finance), or only certain systems or elements of the infrastructure (for example, HSR PPPs in Spain for electrification versus signaling and telecommunications).

Water: A water PPP may relate to one of the following:

  • Only a plant or group of plants to treat water, under off-take agreements with a regional or municipal water utility;
  • The upgrading and O&M of an entire system, which includes the building and O&M of all plants, the maintenance of the water network (pipelines, pump stations), and the operation of the service to homes (water supply); and
  • Only management services to support the provision of water supply service (for example, managing tariff collection).[70]

Health: A health PPP may include the following:

  • The integrated delivery of the infrastructure (the hospital facility), the facility management and also the clinical services;
  • Only the infrastructure provision and maintenance, but leaving the clinical services in the hands of the public health agency (this is the predominant model in Canada, South Africa, Spain, and the UK, among others);
  • Only clinical service provision; and
  • Only medical equipment. A notable example of an all-inclusive/ vertically integrated health PPP in a Least Developed Country is the Masero hospital PPP in Lesotho[71].

[69] See Experiencia Española en Concesiones y APPs: Rails and Light Rails. A. Rebollo commissioned by IDB, 2009.

[70] Handshake (the International Finance Corporation´s quarterly journal on PPPs) discusses water PPPs in its issue #1 (May 2012 reprinted), and includes some interesting examples of different project types. Resource Book on PPP Case Studies (European Commission, 2004) analyses the application of PPPs around Europe, including 10 case studies of water and wastewater treatment projects.

[71] See Health System Innovation in Lesotho prepared by the University of California, San Francisco’s Global Health Group and PwC, 2013. Handshake issue #3 (October 2011) discusses the role PPPs and other private involvement in the health sector. A Preliminary Reflection on the Best Practice in PPP Health Sector: A Review of Different PPP Case Studies and Experiences (The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), World Health Organization (WHO) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), in draft version 2012) include several case studies on the various scopes and structures in health PPPs. The South Africa PPP Unit of the National Treasury provides for three cases studies of PPP health projects developed in the country in Case Studies on the Public Private Partnerships at Humansdorp District Hospital Universitas, Pelonomi Hospitals and Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital (National Treasury PPP Unit South Africa 2013). http://www.ppp.gov.za/Legal%20Aspects/Case%20Studies/Humansdorp%20Overal....

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