Tosin Ajakaiye (Independent researcher) has posted Bankability by Design: Illusory Risk Transfer, Structural Renegotiation, and a Resilient Framework for Public-Private Partnerships in Emerging Infrastructure Markets on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Public-Private Partnership contracts across emerging infrastructure markets are structurally optimised for financial close rather than lifecycle delivery. This paper argues that the risk allocation architecture underlying most PPP concession agreements examined here through clause-level analysis of Nigeria’s April 2026 ICRC Model PPP Agreement produces illusory rather than genuine risk transfer: contractual risk allocation that does not survive contact with the private party’s actual absorptive capacity over a twenty-to-thirty-year concession term. Drawing on Guasch’s empirical work on concession renegotiation, Hart’s incomplete contracts theory, and Irwin’s framework for the fiscal cost of contingent government risk, this paper demonstrates that the ICRC Model Agreement’s non-waivable Financial Close condition precedent, its Financial Model update proviso, and its discretionary governance review mechanism together entrench financial close as the document’s true optimisation target, a pattern this paper argues is general across emerging-market PPP contracting, evidenced through one jurisdiction’s model text rather than claimed on the basis of cross-country data. The paper proposes a three-tier Resilient PPP Framework—a private retention zone, a shared risk corridor with mandatory bilateral governance triggers verified through data sources independent of both contracting parties, and a planned sovereign backstop. The paper closes by situating this problem within the interests of international capital allocators, including US development finance and institutional investment now directing significant flows into African and emerging-market infrastructure.
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