The Ministry of Planning, Development & Special Initiatives (MoPD&SI), being the custodian of Pakistan’s overall development plan and development resources, has been tasked to lead the initiative for financing/utilizing public infrastructure/assets through alternative sources of funding, ‘PSDP+’. P3A, given its mandate of promoting private sector investment in the country, has been delegated with the operational responsibilities of managing the PSDP+ portfolio for the projects which fall under P3A’s mandate (‘Qualified’ projects). P3A also provides much needed facilitation to the implementing agencies for the projects which are not ‘Qualified’ but still fall under the domain of public private partnerships.

The following is the over-view of the entire PSDP+ portfolio:

The P3A Projects Pipeline comprises of the following two types of projects as differentiated under the P3A (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020:

1. ‘Qualified’ projects, which will undergo approval processes of P3A and relevant P3A bodies (such as Public Private Partnership Working Party [P3WP], P3A Board and Risk Management Unit [RMU]). P3 projects are ‘Qualified’ under the P3A (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020 when they require one or more of the following:

a. Government funding, including Viability Gap Funding (VGF).
b. Sovereign guarantees issued by the government.
c. Project development funding (costs for hiring a Transaction Advisor to carry-out feasibility study and/or assist the implementing agency in soliciting a technically qualified and financially sound investor through the competitive bidding process) financed through P3A’s Project Development Fund.

2. Not ‘Qualified’ projects do not require any of the above and do not have to undergo P3A approval processes. Nonetheless, P3A is still facilitating the implementing agencies in developing, structuring and procuring such projects on a P3 basis.