Project Preparation Facilities Network Inaugural Meeting
9 June 2014
The ICA Secretariat will be hosting the inaugural meeting for the establishment of a Project Preparation Facilities Network (PPFN) - from June 17-18, in Tunis.
"... We have over 25 registered participants; including 13 funding facilities registered for this meeting, so we are looking forward to a productive two days..." says, Mohamed Hassan, Coordinator of the ICA.
Over the years, too many great ideas for energy, transportation, water and communications technology projects have died on the vine because sponsors and developers could not finance the project preparation phase - meaning the entire spectrum of activities that have to take place before an infrastructure project can be of interest to a potential financier.
With the above issues in mind, in 2011 the Multilateral Development Bank Working Group of the G20 identified Project Preparation as a key constraint to development on infrastructure and growth in Africa. Accordingly, the G20 High Level Panel then requested the ICA to investigate this issue further, leading the ICA to carry out an assessment of existing Project Preparation Facilities in Africa, which resulted in a report produced in November 2012.
“… The ICA has been working very hard to deal with the challenges associated with project preparation…” continued Hassan. “… We have been studying the obstacles to project preparation and we have come up with several helpful tools...”
In tandem with the 2012 report, the ICA launched The Fund Finder; an on-line searchable database of facilities that fund project preparation activities. Fund Finder helps project promoters and managers locate funding to start the institutional, legal, social, environmental, financial, regulatory, engineering and advisory services that are needed to go from a concept to a clearly defined and properly structured project with a clear identification and allocation of risk.
A Project Preparation Facilities Network (PPFN) is the next step in making it easier to get much needed project preparation work completed. By forming a network, funding facilities can share best practices and provide fund seekers with more of a one-stop-source of information. Accordingly, a decision was made at the 2013 ICA Annual Meeting in Arusha, Tanzania, to create a PPFN (Project Preparation Facilities Network) in 2014. The June meeting is the first step in creating that network.
“… We have several objectives in this inaugural meeting…”, says Hassan. “…We’ll be discussing many issues, including: benchmarking, joint funding, knowledge management and resource mobilization … so it should be a lively session…”
The specific outcomes of this meeting will be shared in the next edition of @ISSUE.