Sustainable Success of PPPs are determined by the ability of the PPP operators in engaging a multi-stakeholder dialogue and partnership. A lack of inclusion of civil society and particularly of CSO citizens who are impacted positively or negatively by an infrastructure PPP can result in conflicts which in the worst case can lead to a premature end of a PPP project.

Raymond Saner gave a presentation during the Conference-Debate session at the Fédération Nationale des Travaux Publics in Paris which took place during the Paris InfraWeek on 11th October 2023

Panelists and their Topics: 

Raymond Saner, Director, Diplomacy Dialogue, Geneva. Topic: Introduction - the PMSC Industry.

Valentin Zellweger, Ambassador & Permanent Representative of Switzerland, to the United Nations and other International Organization in Geneva. Topic: International standard setting for PMSCs: a model for other areas?

Kelisiana Thynne, Legal Advisor, Advisory Services on International Humanitarian Law International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Geneva. Topic: PMSC & International  Humanitarian Law: the need for implementation.

Jamie A. Williamson, Executive Director, International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers’ Association (ICoCA), Geneva. Topic: The International Code of Conduct for Private Security Providers’ Association.

Moderator: Dr. Lichia Yiu, President, CSEND, Geneva

Raymond Saner, (2021) « PPPs and SDGs, the Missing Stakeholder Is Civil Society”

In A. Farazmand (ed.), Global Encyclopedia of Public Administration, Public Policy, and Governance, pp 1-10, Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021; https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31816-5_4320-1

The SDGs suggest the achievement of sustain able economic, social, and environmental goals (triple bottom line) for each member country of the United Nations. To implement the SDGs, each government is supposed to set its triple bottom line goals, communicate them to their citizens, make the goal setting inclusive and participatory, and provide for means to review and monitor the implementation of the SDGs from 2015 to 2030. The UNECE PPP standard setting process is too crucial for the future of our societies to be left to private sector providers (construction companies, financial brokers) and government offices often short of democratic legitimacy. Without the inclusion of the civil society actors like consumer groups, cooperatives, labor unions, academic scholars, and teaching faculty, the risk of misguided investment decisions and related rent- seeking behavior by private and public sector actors is too high to be left to experts alone, however competent they might be. What is needed is a PPP Observatory which could add information on PPPs that are often missing or not fully reliable. Such a PPP Observatory could support UNECE and other international organizations but also governments and civil society stake holders involved in PPPs. A PPP Observatory could help the PPP-SDG process stay on course and ensure that the implementation of PPPs is aligned with SDG principles such as inclusiveness, participation, and transparency.

Raymond Saner & Lichia Yiu; (2018); “System Change at National Government Level”, Published in Research in Organizational Change and Development, Published online: 30 Jul 2018; 341-388.

The authors present and discuss a large system transformation project which they designed and implemented in Slovenia at the start of its independence in the early 1990s. Post-mortem analysis generates insights that are useful for practitioners who embark on a similarly broad and cross-sectoral level of transformation process. ODC design issues are discussed giving special consideration on structuring the pre-contracting phase to guarantee good enough inclusive stakeholder representation and participation throughout the transformation process. Intervention design needs to allow for experimentation and multi-stakeholder alliance building. Application of Action Research and Action Learning in a politicized and risk averse environment typical of central governments helped to enforce a sense of ownership, control and collective accountability in the partner country.

Keywords: Republic of Slovenia, social system change, public administrative reform, organization development, transition country challenges, action research, action learning, institution development.