Executive Director, Programme Management Unit (PMU)
Recruitment Information Pack
Contents Page Number
· Welcome Message 3
· About PIDG 4
· Governance 7
· PMU Role 9
· Role Profile 11
· Person Specification 13
· Indicative Timetable 14
· Response Instructions 15
Welcome Message
Thank you for your interest in the position of Executive Director of the Project Management Unit (PMU) for the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG). The PIDG does not employ people directly, however opportunities do arise within the PMU or PIDG companies. Links to these opportunities may be advertised here. Please do not send applications via this website.
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Without serious investment in infrastructure, no country can deliver sustainable economic growth; no country can lift its people out of poverty.
In the developed world it’s easy to take infrastructure for granted. In poor countries the need for essential infrastructure is more urgent, its impact far greater, but the public sector is less able to fund it.
Yet without the dramatic acceleration of economic growth that new roads, or power plants deliver, developing countries won’t be able to reduce poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Infrastructure, such as roads or ports, transforms life in the poorest parts of the world, enabling parents to get to work, children to get an education, and families to benefit from economic growth.
The PIDG mobilises private sector investment to assist developing countries in providing infrastructure vital to boosting their economic growth, and combating poverty. Through a group of subsidiary companies, PIDG offers specialised financing and project development expertise. Each company can customise the right solution for each set of circumstances. Together, these companies are designed to get infrastructure initiatives off the ground, in countries which find investment hard to attract. Naturally, each company must deliver a return for its investors, but there is a critical difference – it’s equally important that they deliver specific development objectives. Transforming lives as well as landscapes, people as well as projects, is critical to PIDG investments.
PIDG has founded a range of specialised financing and project development companies designed to overcome the obstacles to generating private sector investment in infrastructure projects in poor countries. Through its companies, it brings financial, practical and strategic leadership. With a readiness to be bold and, where appropriate, back investments where other investors fear to tread.
The PIDG is less than ten years old. Because of the long timeframes involved in infrastructure development, all its activities are still, to some extent, proving themselves and the model described above has evolved, rather than being explicitly designed and planned from the outset. This model will need to evolve further, involving expansion and change to existing facilities, selective creation of new activities, some fluidity in the involvement of existing members, and recruitment of new donors. In a period of worldwide fiscal austerity, the PIDG will need to demonstrate the impact and value-for-money of everything it does, while controlling and limiting reputation and financial risks incurred in doing so. These challenges call for a leader with imagination, persuasiveness and highly competent motivation, management and delegation skills, who is in philosophical agreement with the purpose and style of the organisation and able to forge consensus and support for his or her proposals.
This is truly exciting and you could not have picked a better time to want to get involved in the industry. If you are interested in this critical but fulfilling role then we look forward to receiving your application.
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About the PIDG
PIDG was established in 2002 as a multi-donor international organisation established to promote private participation in infrastructure in the world’s poorest developing countries.
It was founded on the twin beliefs that promoting growth and fighting poverty in developing countries demands serious investment in infrastructure and that the level of funding required in the poorer developing countries is such that the private sector has a crucial role to play in helping to achieve this priority. If the private sector is to be attracted to invest in infrastructure projects in these countries, it will need expert and reliable encouragement and support.
PIDG was established as a coalition of partners, focused on overcoming obstacles to private sector involvement in infrastructure development such as:
· Lack of suitable projects for investment.
· High upfront costs of project development.
· Shortage of long-term debt.
· Lack of local currency investment.
· Inadequate capacity and expertise in public and private sectors in some of the world’s poorest countries.
In addressing these obstacles, our aim is to help mobilise private investment in the infrastructure that is needed to increase service provision for the poor, boost economic growth and alleviate poverty in developing countries. Our other aims in these countries include: capacity building; adding value to existing development efforts; and achieving sustainable growth and value-for-money.
Vision
The PIDG tackles market and institutional deficiencies and failures constraining the participation of the private sector in infrastructure development in its countries in the belief that specific initiatives targeted against such failures will enhance economic growth and reduce poverty.
Mission
PIDG’s mission is: “To mobilise private sector investment to assist developing countries to provide infrastructure vital to boost their economic growth and combat poverty.”
Guided by its mission, the objectives of the PIDG are as follows:
· Enhanced provision of sustainable infrastructure services (quality and quantity);
· Increased numbers of poor people able to access and use infrastructure services;
· Increased flows of local, regional and international investor capital and expertise to infrastructure;
· Transfer of skills at a local level and building of domestic capacity to harness private participation in infrastructure for the benefit of the country and especially the poor;
· Pro-poor economic growth.
PIDG therefore works to facilitate private investment in the infrastructure sector in the poorest developing countries, targeting its activities at these interlocking market and institutional deficiencies and failures. PIDG activities are generally operated commercially through public-private initiatives whose business operations will eliminate or reduce market failures, do business in areas in which existing private sector companies are unwilling or unable to operate, demonstrate opportunities for other private sector benefactors, and thus directly and indirectly encourage the wider participation of private capital.
The carefully designed private companies and facilities through which the PIDG delivers its mission and objectives are shown in the diagram below, illustrating the role of the PIDG along the project cycle and the specific constraints the different companies/facilities seek to address.
The PIDG continues to grow, developing new targeted initiatives in response to evolving market needs, and remaining a leader in the area of donor-funded support to private sector infrastructure investment. Where new interventions are needed, they are developed in harmony with existing initiatives of others to avoid duplication.
As compared to the traditional donor approach, the PIDG is a distinctive development organisation in four principal ways:
Focus on infrastructure development in the poorest of countries
The PIDG is solely focused on infrastructure development, which sets it apart from many other donor-backed initiatives. It attaches particular importance to the provision of adequate and affordable services to the poorer countries and only permits investment in eligible economic infrastructure sectors (principally electric power, transport, water and sanitation and, selectively, information and communications technology – together with related materials manufacture for all such sectors). PIDG facilities are restricted (except in some special cases) to investing in “Least Developed Countries” and “Other Low Income Countries” on the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) list of ODA Recipients.
Resolution of market failures by private sector delivery
Wherever practicable, PIDG uses private sector agents, and thereby commercial innovation and discipline, to deliver public objectives. The majority of the PIDG facilities are private limited companies (or in Infrastructure Crisis Facility Debt Pool’s (“ICF DP”) case, a limited liability partnership) with an independent Board of ‘non-executive’ directors who are predominately private sector individuals. The day to day management of The Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund Ltd (“EAIF”), GuarantCo Ltd (“GuarantCo”), InfraCo Ltd (“InfraCo Africa”), InfraCo Asia Development Pte. Ltd (“InfraCo Asia”) and the ICF DP has been contracted to specialist management companies after international competitive tenders. The Boards have a responsibility for ensuring that the management companies deliver on the strategic goals set by the PIDG members, and the members are not required to make ordinary-course-of-business decisions. The Board members are not typically from donor organisations, but rather infrastructure and finance professionals with a detailed understanding and experience of both the operations of the underlying vehicles and the policy objectives of the PIDG members. The PIDG members are able to learn significant lessons at close hand about the realities of the market and institutional deficiencies and failures that constrain the participation of the private sector in infrastructure in developing countries through their interaction with the Boards and management teams, which assists them in their role in policy setting in this sector.
Effective handling of public-private interface
The benefit of the PIDG governance model is that it allocates roles to those best placed to deliver results – the PIDG members, as funders and interested stakeholders, have set the PIDG mandate for each facility and assumed the role of shareholder, providing high-level strategic guidance for the initiatives, leaving the detailed financing and development risk-taking decisions of each company to the Boards, supported by the management teams. This PPP approach is, however, not without its challenges – and the PIDG is constantly working towards balancing the different priorities and working styles of the public and private sectors.
Minimal bureaucracy, no permanent establishment
The PIDG itself is not a legal entity and has not been set up as a permanent institution. Its members meet twice a year and rely on a trust, the PIDG Trust, and a Programme Management Unit (“PMU”), retained on a 4-year contractual basis by the PIDG Trust, to provide fiduciary and management services on the PIDG’s behalf. The PIDG facilities themselves do not currently have any employees, except in the case of InfraCo Asia, which has a corporate executive to support the Board (although when each facility is established careful consideration is given to whether the facility should build an in house team or contract out its activities) and the service contracts with the management teams can be terminated on notice. This approach also allows the PIDG and its facilities to obtain ‘value for money’ through international competitive bidding, and by contracting the management activities out, to avoid the creation of an institutional bureaucracy. The PIDG’s current approach is ‘light touch’, ensuring sufficient flexibility amongst the facilities to manage their operations, but with critical PIDG member oversight and strategic guidance facilitated by the PMU. As a result, the overall ‘PIDG culture’ has evolved as one with relatively greater flexibility and speed, as compared to many other donor supported initiatives, while at the same time ensuring that the highest ethical and efficiency standards are maintained.
Governance
PIDG operates through a Governing Council, a Programme Management Unit (PMU) and the PIDG Trust
· The Governing Council, the key decision-making body, represents the PIDG Members who provide grant and loan funding to the PIDG Trust.
· The Chair’s office is responsible for directing the strategy of the PIDG, reviewing the evaluations of the performance of the Board, and the PMU and coordinating member’s oversight of compliance with the PIDG Code of Conduct and risk management. It consists of the PIDG Chair and the Special Councilor. The previous and subsequent Chairs’ special advisors may also be invited to attend meetings of the Chair’s Office.
· The PIDG Trust invests in, owns and manages the PIDG subsidiary companies. It is a Mauritian Trust, currently administered by a UK-based Principal Trustee, SG Hambros Trust Company Ltd.
· The PMU manages PIDG activities and is the central point of contact for all PIDG correspondence. The Governing Council has appointed MDY Legal (trading name of Marriott Davies Yapp LLP) as the current PMU. The PMU consists of an Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer who are supported by a Development Adviser, Technical Managers and administrative staff.
PIDG Governance Structure
In the governance and structure of our organisation, we are committed to donor co-ordination and ensuring best practice in funding our subsidiaries’ programmes. Our approach complements that of the Public Private Infrastructure Advisory Facility (PPIAF), which focuses on creating appropriate and enabling environments for infrastructure investment.
To ensure the continued success of our activities, in 2007 the Programme Management Unit streamlined the results monitoring and evaluation framework. This measures the developmental impacts of all PIDG-supported projects. These include: increases in private sector investment; additional number of people served; improved quality of service; employment effects; and fiscal impacts. The framework also evaluates how each project aligns with the national development plan of the target country.
Monitoring our activities ensures that we achieve our principal goal to mobilise private investment in infrastructure in order to transform the lives of people living in the world’s poorest countries.
The PIDG Facilities and Affiliated Programmes – Results to date
The facilities fall under the overall governance structure of the PIDG. Those facilities established as companies (or an LLP in the case of ICF DP) are legal entities in different jurisdictions.
Other programmes, referred to as “Affiliated Programmes”, are sister programmes of the PIDG in that they also support aspects of the private participation in infrastructure, but are not under the direct governance structure of the PIDG.
The PIDG members have, to date, paid in over $400m to the facilities over the past 9 years. Through the various facilities, these funds have been deployed into over 60 projects in the world’s poorest countries. In total, these projects are expected, when all completed and operating, to have attracted over $12 billion of total investment, and serve over 50 million people.