Public-Private Partnerships in the GCC: Reality and Challenges

This article discusses the experience of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. It also explores the relevant individual characteristics of each country of the GCC and highlights the challenges each country faces or is likely to face in implementing PPPs. This paper seeks to understand the extent to which the implementation of PPPs in the GCC has been consistent with international best practices in formulating and creating legal and regulatory frameworks for such partnerships. It adopts a comparative approach to public policy analysis to review empirical and theoretical studies of PPPs in the GCC. The article concludes that all the GCC countries follow different, and sometimes unclear, policies in implementing partnerships and that these partnerships remain limited compared to their global counterparts. It also identifies the most significant and common obstacles and challenges these countries face in creating an attractive and competitive environment in which to implement sustainable partnerships that contribute to their ambitious economic visions and accelerate their transformation from a rentier into knowledge and production economies.


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This article discusses the experience of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. It also explores the relevant individual characteristics of each country of the GCC and highlights the challenges each country faces or is likely to face in implementing PPPs. This paper seeks to understand the extent to which the implementation of PPPs in the GCC has been consistent with international best practices in formulating and creating legal and regulatory frameworks for such partnerships. It adopts a comparative approach to public policy analysis to review empirical and theoretical studies of PPPs in the GCC. The article concludes that all the GCC countries follow different, and sometimes unclear, policies in implementing partnerships and that these partnerships remain limited compared to their global counterparts. It also identifies the most significant and common obstacles and challenges these countries face in creating an attractive and competitive environment in which to implement sustainable partnerships that contribute to their ambitious economic visions and accelerate their transformation from a rentier into knowledge and production economies.


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