Public-Private Partnerships in Housing: Empirical Study on Bangladesh as an Emerging Country

Abstract

The concept of PPP in Bangladesh has been widely recognized as a natural response to meet the colossal demand for housing, government’s dwindling budgetary capacity, massive demand coming from a section of the society for better quality of services and a need for a catalyst to boost macro-economic conditions. The city has been in the forefront of housing market revival and prime government agencies have, under the PPP framework, assumed a unique facilitating role without undermining the pervasive influence of the regulatory ideology. As the influential partner in implementation, the government is able to revise regulations related to land supply, building materials, target groups, affordability, building bye laws and regulatory framework as and when necessary. This paper investigates the dynamics of the public private interplay that has resulted from the Bangladesh Government’s Public Private Partnership policy in supplying affordable housing in all over Bangladesh. Overall, its considerable success in the city paints a rosy picture as the joint approach brings together the technical and managerial expertise of the private sector with the accountability and fair pricing (obligation) of the public sector to improve the delivery of good quality housing. It is interesting to observe how two opposite forces have blended and are growing in the midst of prospect and constraints, conflict and cooperation, that are, oddly enough, set within the socialist institutional context. However, housing production under the PPP model is impressive in terms of costs and quality but is miniscule in terms of numbers.

KEY WORDS: Bangladesh; Public Private Partnership; Legal and Regulatory Framework; Urban Poor; Affordable Housing;