Growing populations and aging infrastructure are straining the capacity of many nations to deliver essential public services and grow their economies. Overcoming this infrastructure deficit will require public and private sectors working together, and well-structured public-private partnerships (PPPs) are one solution for helping governments raise the large sums of capital needed to meet infrastructure demands and spur development.

Yet many developing economy countries lack the expertise, in both public and private sectors, to design, implement and regulate PPPs. All too often, this results in projects not achieving their intended benefits and causing many good schemes to fail.

To help address this, the World Bank Group (WBG), together with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), has developed a comprehensive Global Certification Program (GCP) on PPPs to help build national capacity to identify infrastructure needs and develop, implement and manage projects in partnership with the private sector. The certification scheme has been conceived by the WBG as a way of fostering a common minimum level of knowledge and understanding of amongst practitioners working on PPPs. APMG has been selected to be the Delivery Partner for the development and management of the GCP, following an open invitation to tender.

Laurence Carter, Senior Director for PPPs in the World Bank Group said, “An increased role of PPPs to close basic service gaps is critical to the Bank’s goals of eliminating extreme poverty and increasing shared prosperity. We believe this certification program can fill an important gap in current approaches to capacity building by developing a global standard of knowledge, helping to facilitate the development of a common language on PPPs and harmonise expectations and understanding between practitioners involved at different stages and on different sides of the PPP process.”

The certifications will be linked to specific stages in a PPP project and will be launched in mid-2015, The Public-Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF) is supporting the initiative with a grant.

APMG-International has over fifteen years’ experience in Programme and Project Management certification programs including PRINCE2®, Agile Project Management and PMDPro®, the certification for project managers working in humanitarian and disaster zones.

Speaking of the appointment, Richard Pharro, CEO, said, “APMG currently delivers professional certifications in all regions of the globe every day of the year. We believe that qualifications give organisations confidence that people can deliver high standards while they are extremely motivating for staff. We are delighted to work with the World Bank Group and the regional development banks in this important initiative. Up-skilling those responsible for the management of PPP programs will deliver significant benefits to the communities they are designed to help. We hope they will also be a challenge and stimulation for those who take the training courses and put themselves forward for the examinations, starting in 2015.”