Preparation Stage – Collecting Information

4.5 What are the underlying issues to keep in mind?

Capacity and resources

Collecting information to facilitate the development of the PPP process requires capacity that may not be readily available in municipalities. It is important that municipal managers keep this in mind and consider the possibility of collaborating with other municipalities to acquire the necessary skills. Municipal managers need to consider the following issues.

• What skills exist within the municipality that could be used in the information gathering process?
• What are the categories and numbers of staff that will be involved?
• Where and how can the municipality acquire the extra capacity it needs?
• How will the gap created by staff participating in the information gathering be filled?
• Is documentation within the municipality good enough to provide the necessary information?
• How will the process be funded? Ideally, the public sector allocates the research money. However, the so-called seed money is often requested as part of the donor support.

Specific poverty-related issues

Apart from collecting information on current and desirable access to the service and willingness and ability to pay for the service, the municipality should also look deeper into specific poverty-related issues. For instance, income and gender disaggregated data, or cast and race disaggregating should be considered in the relevant situations. All this information needs to be collected and included in the subsequent analysis.

 

Summary of Actions
A. Review the regulatory and institutional issues
B. Assess the state of the utility (financial, technical and performance)
C. Conduct consumer surveys (perceptions, willingness and ability to pay)
D. Assess the present and future efficiency and capacity of the private sector to participate in service provision
E. Identify stakeholders that support and oppose private sector participation