THE Zimbabwe Investment and Development Agency (Zida) is crafting a comprehensive public-private partnership (PPP) guideline aimed at ensuring the government stays focused on national priorities, businessdigest can report.

This move, according to Zida, is expected to streamline PPP processes and procedures, providing a clear framework for investors and stakeholders alike.

“It is expected that once they are approved and adopted, they will ensure that the government, through the contracting authorities, remains focused on pursuing national priorities for infrastructure development,” the agency said in emailed responses to businessdigest.

“The guidelines will improve the project identification of PPP projects, clarify the roles and obligations of stakeholders, and ultimately lead to a focus on solicited projects.”

The organisation also revealed that from November 2023 to date, it had received 26 proposals, of which seven were solicited bids and 19 were unsolicited, spread across different sectors.

Unsolicited projects are projects identified by counterparty and brought to the contracting authority for consideration.

These projects are not part of the project list or pipeline included in the short to medium-term plans for implementation by the contracting authority.

Once received, the contracting authority must assess the strategic fit and alignment with the country’s national development goals. 

“Unsolicited projects impact on a contracting authority’s strategic focus since they are not part of an approved strategy, however, if well-considered and assessed they can still contribute to national development,” Zida said.

Zida also said it had undertaken project preparation and development capacity building workshops for government ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs) as contracting authorities.

These workshops are meant to equip the MDAs in project identification and appraisal, and develop their project pipeline that they can focus on.

“Secondly, Zida is in the process of developing PPP guidelines that will assist in ensuring that as a country, we will remain focused on pursuing national priorities in infrastructure development,” it said.