On February 20 BEA hosted a one-day workshop aimed at giving attendees the skills and knowledge of how to assess possibilities for implementing public-private partnership (PPP) projects and conducting PPP feasibility studies. The workshop was attended by representatives of the municipalities that will participate in the BEA PPP pilot program and the experts who will be engaged to provide consultancy within their PPP projects. The objective of the program is to enhance the collaboration between the public and private sector in order to contribute to achieving sustainable local development through the use of PPP.

The workshop had two technical sessions. In the first session, the workshop speaker, Mr. Witold Grzybowski, a Polish PPP expert, guided the participants through the pro-s and con-s of the PPP project ideas proposed by the participating municipalities. In the second session, Mr. Grzybowski presented the steps of the “feasibility study process” and the methods for evaluation of PPP projects.

The workshop participants used this opportunity to jointly outline practical ways to move forward in the area of PPP and highlight some common challenges they are currently facing.

“At the moment, Macedonian municipalities find themselves under the pressure of two dominant forces. First is the process of globalization, which calls for intensive, dynamic and immediate development. Second is the process of decentralization that, compared with the other countries, has been introduced in Macedonia with a certain delay and has not yet achieved the level of development to properly respond to the local needs. In such circumstances, when the pressure on the localities to perform more effectively is extremely strong, our municipalities really need expert support in finding alternatives for financing capital investment. In this regard, I find this workshop very constructive and valuable”, said Marjan Nikolov from the Centre for Economic Analysis.

“Municipal officials need to have skills to efficiently handle PPP projects. This type of workshops is essential to process PPP projects for infrastructure and other local development”, said Snezana Menovska from the Gjorche Petrov Municipality.

Special emphasis of Mr. Grzybowski’s presentation was put on the “value for money” approach, which suggests allocation of risk factors that minimizes costs while improving performance of the PPP projects.