The Role of PPPs in Lebanon's Infrastructure Development: An Analysis

This essay provides an in-depth analysis of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in Lebanon, focusing on their role in post-civil war infrastructure development. It explores the collaborative advantage of PPPs, highlighting their potential to attract investment, improve efficiency, and reduce risks. The essay examines the context of Lebanon, discussing the government's strategy to privatize public enterprises and partner with private entities to enhance infrastructure. It delves into the benefits of PPPs, such as improved infrastructural facilities, timely project completion, and increased ROI. Furthermore, it addresses challenges like collaborative inertia, using the EL-Alamain Airport project as an example. The essay critically discusses the power dynamics within PPPs, particularly the private sector's focus on control, and examines how political and societal factors influence the success of these partnerships. It concludes by emphasizing the importance of PPPs in addressing national issues such as unemployment and poverty, and the need for effective project management to achieve success.

Managing Public-Private Partnership
Student Details
1-1-2020

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Managing Public-Private Partnership
Public-Private partnership is being adopted by the nation’s government to develop the
nation’s infrastructure without investing heavily on the projects and infrastructure. Under the
public-private partnership, the government privatise the public enterprises and partners with
private enterprises to operate the enterprise with advanced technological and operational
skills. The success of the collaboration is dependent on the contribution made by both the
government as well as the private sector (Wang, et al., 2017). The essay is focused on
analysing the Public-Private Partnership in Lebanon and the effective development of the
nation’s infrastructure after the civil war. The public-private partnership is based on certain
situations, the essay effectively analyses the situation in the context of Lebanon, and helps in
understanding the role of the private sector within the collaboration.
Public-Private Partnership (PPPs) is an effective way to develop the nation’s infrastructure
and to support the economic structure of the nation. It is assumed as the private sector has a
substantial amount of investment, and technical as well as operational stability as compared
to the public sector, which will effectively contribute towards the economic development of
the nation. PPPs helps in providing a better infrastructural facility to the nation and helps in
completion of the governmental projects within the allocated time and increased ROI on the
project. Also, with the private expertise in the sector, the risk within the projects reduces and
the efficiency of the project is improved (Delmon, 2017).
PPPs are required to operate in different organisational and sector backgrounds due to which
they may possess to threats within the industry that may affect the ROI on the projects, under
such cases the partnership between private and public leads towards the collaborative inertia.
The collaborative advantage within the PPPs is based on certain bases that include;

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Access to Resources: as in cases when the organisation fails to acquire the resources on their
own then they focus on collaborating with the organisations to share the resources as well as
their expertise.
Shared Risk: Also, the competitive advantage is based on the requirements to share risk
within the organisation, as with the partnership or the collaboration both the organisation is
entitled to the risk within the business environment (Sarmento & Renneboog, 2016).
Efficiency: PPPs also result in improving efficiency, as the private organisations are more
efficient than the public ones, therefore the nation focus on PPPs so that the efficiency can be
improved.
Coordination: As efficiency helps in achieving economies of scale and helps in better
coordination within the activities of the organisation.
Learning: Also, PPPs help in mutual learning among the organisations, as both the
organisation learn from each other expertise within the industry.
Moral Imperative: There is a moral perspective behind PPPs, as the public organisations
alone cannot deal with the issues within the society such as unemployment, health promotion,
economic development. Therefore, the partnership between public and private organisation
helps in dealing with such issues effectively within the nation (Investopedia, 2019).
Lebanon is focusing on the collaborative advantage of PPPs so that the effectiveness can be
ensured within the nation. The government ensure that the activities within the nation
contribute towards decreasing unemployment rate and the government will be able to attract
more foreign capital. PPPs will help Lebanon government in improving the efficiency of its
state-owned enterprises, as the private partnership of its firm EDL will help the government

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in saving up to billion dollars a year that the government was using to subsidise the activities
within the organisation. Also, PPPs will help in investing in infrastructure within the nation,
and the renovation of the Beirut Airport can be done effectively (Saadeh, 2016).
The efficiency of the private sector will effectively help in the development of Lebanon’s
infrastructure after the civil war. The effort of the Lebanon government towards
implementing PPPs within the nation to improve the efficiency of the state-owned enterprises
and will help the government effectively deal with the issues within the nation. Collaborative
inertia is defined when the collaboration results in slow growth also without any tangible
outcomes. As per the case study, some projects are politically as well as socially challenging
to implement within the nation, therefore in such cases, the collaboration results in achieving
negative or no results at all (Saadeh, 2016).
EL-Alamain Airport project is an example of the collaborative inertia, as it was developed
under public-private partnership with a motive to boost airline industry within Egypt, but due
to certain issues within the government policies and due to the budget deficit the development
of the airport lagged behind the schedule, due to which from the initial stage the project
remained in the state of the collaborative inertia and the income from the airport is too low
that it is not even sufficient to cover the construction or running costs (Samir & Maher,
2018).
The partnership requires that the partners have control over the activities of the organisation
so that the organisational effectiveness can be achieved and the partnership can be run
effectively within the industry and can provide the desired results. The power within the
collaboration is defined as the ability to influence the activities within the organisation and
taking steps so that the issues within the organisational environment can be eliminated.
Within the collaboration, there are different types of power depending upon the ability to

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control within the organisation. The power over is defined as the authority to control or
dominate within the organisation (Pansardi, 2012).
The power over is considered as a powerful, as the individual having such power can
effectively influence the activities within the organisation in its favour. Power is defined as
the potential of the individual to introduce change within the organisation without creating
any dominance within the organisation. The power defines the individual sense of self-worth
and to recognise the individual differences within the organisation. The power for help in
developing a sense of responsibility that help in understanding their role and to believe that
they can make a difference within the organisation (IDS, 2020).
The private sector focuses on the power over the type of the power so that they can
effectively control the activities in the case of projects which have certain social as well as
political challenges so that the risks within the projects can be identified effectively and can
be controlled. As the coordination is required to compete within the competitive industry, and
the private sector has also invested a substantial amount in the development of the
organisation and has provided the required technological and operational requirements;
therefore, the private sector focus on controlling the activities within PPP so that the activities
can be conducted as per the planned activities and the project would contribute towards
providing effective returns on the investment done by the private sector (Saadeh, 2016).
To critically discuss the power over focus of the private sector in PPPs, the study by Robert,
et al. explains that the private sector invests within the public projects with the motive of
returns from its investment therefore, it requires that the activities within the organisation are
being controlled by the private sector, so that the strategies and policies developed can
effectively lead towards achieving the goals and objectives. Also, the public-private
partnership accounts for shared risk, therefore it is required that the authority focuses on the

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eliminating the risk from the business so that the effectiveness can be achieved and the
collaboration can contribute towards the nation’s infrastructure development (Robert, et al.,
2014).
The control in public-private partnership is required to be retained by the government so that
the risk that is beyond the control of the private sector can be controlled effectively and the
effectiveness of the project can be achieved, also being an partnership within the public as
well as private sector, the risk is also shared by both the sector, therefore to control the risk
factor private sector focus on controlling the activities so that the returns on investments can
be achieved and both the partners within the collaboration can develop a stable and a
profitable organisation (Cheung, et al., 2012).
Public-private partnerships are done with a focus on the development of the nation’s
economic status. The private sector is assumed to have effective resources that will help in
developing the effectiveness of the public sector enterprises and will contribute towards the
nation’s infrastructural development. Lebanon’s government has effectively focused on
public-private partnerships within the nation to focus on national issues such as
unemployment and poverty. The political, as well as the societal factors, influence the
success of the PPPs, EL-Alamain Airport project, failed to achieve success within the
industry due to the government policies and the budget deficit. Therefore, it is required that
the organisation effectively focus on the project requirements and develop strategies to meet
the project requirements and achieve success. Due to the risk involved within the partnership,
the private sector focuses on power over, so that the activities can be controlled and the
effectiveness can be achieved.

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References
Cheung, E., Chan, A. P. & Kajewski, S., 2012. Factors contributing to successful public
private partnership projects: Comparing Hong Kong with Australia and the United Kingdom.
Journal of Facilities Management, 10(1), pp. 45-58.
Delmon, J., 2017. Public-Private Partnership Projects in Infrastructure: An Essential Guide
for Policy Makers. 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.
IDS, 2020. Power. [Online]
Available at: https://www.participatorymethods.org/method/power
[Accessed 26 February 2020].
Investopedia, 2019. What Impact Do Public-Private Partnerships Have on Economic
Growth?. [Online]
Available at: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/021715/what-impact-publicprivate-
partnerships-have-economic-growth.asp
[Accessed 26 February 2020].
Pansardi, P., 2012. Power to and power over: two distinct concepts of power?. Journal of
Political Power, 5(1), pp. 73-89.
Robert, O. K., Dansohb, A. & Kuragu, J. K. O., 2014. International Journal of Construction
Management, 14(4), pp. 227-238.
Saadeh, L., 2016. Public-Private Partnership in Lebanon, Lebanon : Blominvest Bank.
Samir, H. & Maher, A., 2018. Public Private Partnership: Insights from the Egyptian
Experience. International Journal of Human Resource Studies, 8(3), pp. 241-253.

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Sarmento, J. M. & Renneboog, L., 2016. Anatomy of public-private partnerships: their
creation, financing and renegotiations. International Journal of Managing Projects in
Business, 9(1), pp. 94-122.
Wang, H., Xiong, W., Wu, G. & Zhu, D., 2017. Public–private partnership in Public
Administration discipline: a literature review. Public Management Review, 20(2), pp. 293-
316.