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Critical success factors for public-private partnership in water supply projects

Ernest Effah Ameyaw (Department of Building and Real Estate, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong)
Albert P.C. Chan (Department of Building and Real Estate, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong)

Facilities

ISSN: 0263-2772

Article publication date: 7 March 2016

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Abstract

Purpose

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) are viewed as a reform tool for resolving inefficiency and absence of dynamism in water supply delivery in developing countries. However, the requirements for their successful implementation have received very little attention. This paper aims to describe a set of critical success factors (CSFs) that, when given special and continual attention, would ensure a successful project implementation and to provide a predictive tool to aid implementers to evaluate the likelihood of a successful PPP water supply project.

Design/methodology/approach

Fourteen perceived CSFs were initially derived from project cases and extant literature, and verified through a two-round Delphi survey. Factor analysis established five critical success factor groups (CSFGs) that were then used to develop a fuzzy synthetic evaluation tool for assessing the chance of a successful project.

Findings

The five key CSFGs are commitment of partners, strength of consortium, asset quality and social support, political environment, and national PPP unit. The model output showed that, overall, these factors have a “very high” positive impact on a successful implementation of a water supply project. Hence, there is an excellent correlation between achievement of the CSFGs and project success. Success indices of individual principal factors are also “very high”.

Originality/value

The study presents a tool to public clients and private audience, and it is hoped that the study will trigger policy development towards PPP practice in developing countries, because these findings have wider implications for legal and regulatory systems, public capacity, financing, public procurement and politics.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This paper reports on partial findings of an ongoing research project entitled “Risk Allocation Model for Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Water Supply Projects”, fully funded by the International Postgraduate Scholarship from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, from which other papers have been generated with different objectives but share common methodology background, where some publications (or information) may overlap. For example, Fig. 1 and Table II have been previously reported by the authors in another publication (Ameyaw and Chan, 2015). Content of the current paper is primarily based on the doctoral thesis of the first author. The authors are grateful to the industry experts who kindly participated in the questionnaire survey for this research.

Citation

Ameyaw, E.E. and P.C. Chan, A. (2016), "Critical success factors for public-private partnership in water supply projects", Facilities, Vol. 34 No. 3/4, pp. 124-160. https://doi.org/10.1108/F-04-2014-0034

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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