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ment for the involvement of private actors in education. The Bank involvement includes a wide range of countries such as: Chile, Burkina Faso, Indonesia, El Salvador, Comoros, Cameroon and Ethiopia. The Bank has been very active both in promoting some types of PPPs as in the cases of Tunisia, Lebanon, Mexico, and Argentina, but also directly establishing the institutional environment for PPPs, as in the cases of Indonesia, Cameroon and Ethiopia. Another important aspect of the World Bank projects has been the involvement of NGOs in delivering education, as in the cases of Senegal, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Niger and the Gambia. The role of the Bank and the IFC is generally both financial and technical as they provide assistance for the set-up of PPPs involving NGOs. 27. Likewise, the OECD is very active in promoting PPPs. OECD reports more than 300 papers and activities such as round tables and forums on PPPs. It has commissioned research dedicated to PPPs to provide educational facilities, and to PPPs in general, in a range of countries including: Albania, Bulgaria, Mexico, Nicaragua, South Africa, Thailand Turkey, Uganda and Vietnam. OECD studies have been instrumental in recommendations for countries to engage in PPPs so as to maintain or raise their competitiveness in the global market. While assessing government-industry partnerships in the Netherlands, research from OECD revealed some of these dynamics, stating that a ‘major conclusion of the OECD Growth Study was that greater use of public-private partnerships can enhance the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of technology and innovation policy’ (OECD, 2003). 28. The European Union (EU) has been particularly keen to promote PPPs. In April 2004, the EU produced a Green Paper that set out a series of initiatives aimed at extending the role of the private sector in public services, promoting PPPs, and ensuring that PPPs would have access to public funds (Hall, 2004). The idea is to promote PPPs as a way of raising investment, through financial and administrative incentives, with the encouragement of the private interests that stand to gain from PPPs. The paper recommended that the EU review the legislation in order to facilitate the greater role of the private sector in public services. 29. Similarly, despite scepticism on some issues (see Chapter 1), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has also actively worked on PPPs by producing papers and publications on financial risks and PPPs; and providing technical assistance on managing risk in European and African countries, with about 10 missions in the last 3 years. In 2005, IMF also held seminars on public investment and PPPs in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and in Europe (Cottarelli, 2008).
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See EdInvest, a special website established as ‘a forum for individuals, corporations and other institutions interested in education in developing countries’, http://www.ifc.org/edinvest/