Project profile — Public-Private Partnership Development in Vietnam

• Vietnam (100.00%)

• Public sector policy and administrative management:
Public sector policy and administrative management (15110) (35.00%)
Women's rights organisations and movements, and government institutions (15170) (20.00%)
• Business And Other Services: Business support services and institutions (25010) (35.00%)
• General Environmental Protection: Environmental policy and administrative management (41010) (10.00%)

• Gender equality (significant objective)
• Nutrition (not targeted)
• Children's issues (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Disaster Risk Reduction(DRR) (not targeted)
• Participatory development and good governance (significant objective)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Youth Issues (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (significant objective)
• Disability (not targeted)

This project aims to improve the economic well-being of Vietnamese people, including women and other vulnerable groups, in Vietnam. After two decades of strong economic growth and poverty reduction gains, Vietnam needs to improve and expand its infrastructure while ensuring its environmental sustainability and climate change commitments. The Global Infrastructure Hub estimates that Vietnam would need to invest USD 110 billion between 2021 and 2025 in infrastructure to meet its Sustainable Development Goals, while its current public-financing capacity is only USD 15-18 billion per year. The government must attract much more private capital investment to support sustainable development. The government passed its first-ever public-private partnership (PPP) law in 2020 to address inconsistencies in the regulatory framework, standardize PPP implementation practices, and encourage private sector investor confidence in Vietnam. This project builds on this regulatory momentum to improve the enabling environment for PPPs in Vietnam. It enhances the knowledge and skills of government officials, particularly in assessing gender and environmental sustainability/climate change in planned infrastructure, developing bankable PPP projects, and governance, policy and coordination of the PPP sector. Project activities include: (1) conducting an analytical screening of the government’s 2021-2025 Medium-Term Investment Plan of PPP projects to identify strong candidates for public tendering and prepare a feasibility study for a viable PPP project; (2) studying women’s needs and infrastructure development in Vietnam and assessing gender gap in the operations of a selected government agency; (3) preparing curriculum and recruiting candidates for women’s executive and internship programs; (4) providing training and workshops on skills-building to assess PPP proposals; (5) providing seminars, advice and policy support to the Vietnamese government on the implementation of the PPP Law. This project expects to reach Vietnamese government officials responsible for public-private partnerships (PPP) work at the municipal, provincial and national levels, officials engaged in PPP policy and sector coordination, and approximately 60 women selected to participate in leadership development and internship programs.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) improved abilities of government to develop and implement regulatory frameworks to increase private sector investment in public-private infrastructure partnerships, and (2) improved gender-sensitive and climate action enabling environment for public-private partnership implementation.

Results achieved as of March 2022 include: (1) hosted discussions with the Ministry of Planning and Investment to prepare public-private partnership (PPP) circulars management frameworks; (2) developed an internship and executive training program for women in the infrastructure sector; and (3) screened Vietnamese projects to identify possible candidates for tendering as PPPs.

• Proactive disclosure