"4th Istanbul PPP Week", Co-Sponsored by IsDB; A Major Step in Promoting Public Private Partnership Projects in Different Continents
Istanbul Turkey, 1st November 2019 - The Islamic Development Bank, along with other partners, co-sponsored the organization of the “Istanbul PPP Week” to contribute to encouraging “Public Private Partnerships (PPPs)” as a unique model for financing development in countries where mobilization of resources is considered a major challenge to people’s socio-economic prosperity.
The 4th Istanbul PPP Week under the theme: “Boost PPP Together – Resilient Infrastructure” was a culmination of joint efforts by a number of leading partners such as IsDB, the Ministry of Trade of Turkey, Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey (DEIK), the Global Infrastructure Facility (GIF), and Istanbul PPP Center of Excellence (CoE). This year’s partner country of the event was Nigeria which is a major IsDB Member Country represented by more than 30 participants.
According to DEIK President, Nail Olpak, Turkey ranks first in Europe in implementation of PPP projects and the country takes pride in its iconic Istanbul new airport as an unrivalled example of PPP success at global level.
Dr. Eyup Vural Aydın, Chairman, Istanbul PPPCoE, and David Baxter, Co-Chairman of Istanbul PPP Week also addressed the event portraying PPP as a very successful model for financing development in Turkey as the country is offering to share its outstanding capacity with other developing nations.
IsDB was represented by Mohammad Noman Siddiqui, Manager, PPP Division, Tariq Aijaz, PPP Investment Officer as well as IsDB Group Regional Hub Turkey’s (RHTR) Manager Saleh Jelassi, together with RHTR's Project Management Specialists Cem Galip Özenen and Ali Rıza Kayar who interactively attended the presentation sessions and panel discussions where they introduced the Bank’s enabling environment interventions in order for various Member Countries to learn and understand the benefits of PPPs and resource mobilization mechanisms to attract private sector investments and improve the relevant ecosystems.The event also served as a working slot for the upcoming IsDB PPP Forum which will be held in Istanbul in 2020.
More than 100 representatives from 30 countries 14 of them IsDB Member Countries, attended the different programs of the 4-day event where critical topics such as risk management, project preparation and legal issues related to PPPs were covered. Attending the different programs at the event were specialists from Asia, Africa, Europe and Latin America including those from the Turkey, Azerbaijan, Nigeria, Brazil, Algeria, Morocco, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, Albania, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, Mauritania, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan.
The 4th Istanbul PPP Week played an instrumental role in bringing together different IsDB Member Countries to raise awareness and capacity building in line with the mandate of the IsDB’s PPP advisory function, sponsoring, and participation in the event.