REPORT - Benin – Innovative public private partnerships for rural water services sustainability -

This section sets The program was implemented in partnership with the out the gradual progress towards the professionalized International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the Dutch management of PWS, the key feature of the affermage Embassy in Benin. [...] to the sector, what are the main components involved in strengthening the PPP model for rural water services The GoB, led reforms to introduce a new contractual and highlights how the technical assistance responded arrangement between POs and decentralized to the challenges faced by the sector; municipalities: a concession contract entailing investment obligations for the POs and a public subsidy. [...] The • Delegating the management of PWS to POs through PO receives revenues from the sale of water on the basis of bipartite affermage contracts signed by the municipality tariffs agreed upon with the municipality and is responsible and a PO (referred to in Benin as a “fermier”); for operations and maintenance (O&M) related expenses. [...] As an The results from the evaluation were clear: despite the example, in some municipalities and for some tenders, it is significant progress that the delegated management not uncommon to observe that the bidder who came third models represented in terms of professionalizing the following the Commission’s evaluation is retained as the sector, in practice, the management of PWS was facing successf. [...] well as in the specific context of the introduction of the new PPP model and in the use of the mWater tool for the Clustering of PWS was proposed to enable enlarging the production of operation management reports.