Giving Compass' Take:

• Devex discusses how public-private partnerships can make progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals, specifically in mobilizing financing and developing more innovative solutions.

• Not all PPPs work, and greater transparency is needed, but aid organizations can look at Senegal's recent Scaling Solar program as a model.

• On the other side of the coin, this is why many civil societies are calling for the World Bank Group to halt PPP support.

During the World Bank-IMF Spring Meetings, some civil society organizations called for the World Bank Group to stop supporting client countries with public-private partnerships. I would like to explain how we are involved in PPPs and why they can help countries make important advances toward the Sustainable Development Goals.

But first, some context: The World Bank Group — and our counterpart multilateral development banks — are fully committed to helping countries achieve the SDGs. The scale and ambition of these goals require new solutions, greater collaboration, and a global partnership that includes public authorities, civil society, communities, and the private sector — as a source of financing, innovation, and expertise.

Government budgets and aid alone cannot ensure that everyone gets access to sanitation, water, and electricity. To accomplish this, we must maximize finance for development from all possible sources, including the private sector, which can offer effective development solutions, not just financing.

While governments are in the driver’s seat in determining where they could use more assistance and how to go about it, we can help them build capacity to work with new partners and ensure that these efforts help their people most in need.

There are many ways that governments crowdsource ingenuity, management capacity, and financing from private firms, with PPPs being just one approach they can use. Fundamentally, PPPs represent a procurement technique that can be useful in some circumstances.

We think we can do more good by working with partners to ensure that well-designed PPPs help more people get better access to services.

Read the full article about how public-private partnerships can offer change by Laurence Carter at Devex International Development.