Assessing the Barriers and Risks to Private Sector Participation in Infrastructure Construction Projects in Developing Countries of Middle East

Abstract

In developing countries, governments are often unable to implement urban infrastructure construction projects (UICPs) on their own, mainly due to budget and financial resource limitations. The participation of the private sector, through public–private partnerships (PPPs), has been considered as an alternative effective method for increasing the efficiency and productivity of urban infrastructure development. However, in many developing countries such as those situated in the Middle East, attracting private sector investments for UICPs uncovers profound challenges that have not ever been comprehensively accounted for and prioritized. To fill this knowledge gap, this study seeks to determine and prioritize the major barriers and risks faced by governments and urban managers in attracting private sector investments through the PPP schemes launched by developing countries in the Middle East. Based on a Delphi study conducted in Iran as an example, the opinions of 60 UICPs experts in both the public and private sectors were collected and analyzed. Results show that technical and organizational barriers and risks were perceived as the most important to private sector participation, followed by economic and financial barriers and risks, and then political and legal barriers and risks.

Identifying and Prioritizing the Selection Criteria of Appropriate Repair and Maintenance Methods for Commercial Buildings

“…For example, Chan and Chan (2012) applied the Delphi method to identify a performance measurement index for target cost contracts in construction. Yet, Sarvari et al (2019) used the Delphi method to identify the risk identification approaches in public-private partnership (PPP) projects (see also Tamošaitienė et al, 2021). The Delphi panel of this study included 20 employees of the maintenance department and executive managers of Isfahan's CBs; they were chosen by convenience sampling and directly contacted by the researchers living in Iran.…”

Perceptions of Safety Climate in Construction Projects between Workers and Managers/Supervisors in the Developing Country of Iran

“…Risk refers to the exposure to a hazard (risk factor). Thus, safety is an antonym for risk and aims to eliminate the actual risks present at the worksite [19][20][21][22]. Safety also seeks to prevent the impact of agents that minimize the expected quality of the product or offset the result of the work, thus wasting the efforts made to realize something [23].…”

Determining the main criteria for selecting appropriate methods for repair and maintenance of commercial real estate in Iran

“…This method is used for "identification" and "screening" the most important criteria (Khoshfetrat et al, 2020;Sarvari et al, 2021). The Delphi technique is a structured process for collecting information to make decisions on qualitative issues (Sadeghi, et al, 2021;Dabiri et al, 2021;Tamošaitien_ e et al, 2021b). The main objective of the Delphi method is to achieve the most reliable agreement of a group of expert opinions through a series of focused questionnaires with controlled feedback (Sarvari et al, 2020;Khosravi et al, 2020).…”