Dr. Fernando Fernholz, associate professor of the practice at DCID, along with public finance economist Fernando Cossio, conducted a two-week training program on Integrated Appraisal and Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) for the Central Bank of Paraguay. Thirty participants from the bank and various government agencies participated in the program, which is the first offered by DCID in Paraguay.
“The goal of the program is to give participants the knowledge to make better and more effective decisions on investment projects, in both the public sector and PPPs,” Fernholz said.
The program covered integrated financial and economic analysis of projects, as well as risk analysis, interpretation and methods to reduce or mitigate risk. It also covered in-depth evaluation of PPPs, which are arrangements between the public and private sectors whereby some of the service obligations of the public sector are provided by the private sector.
Cesar Cardozo, director of evaluation of public-private partnerships in Paraguay’s Planning Ministry, said that he and other participants found the program very relevant for their day-to-day work.
“The tools, software and methodologies that we learned for analysis of social projects will be very useful for improving the way we evaluate public-private partnerships,” he said.
Veronica Duarte Domaniczky of Paraguay’s Central Bank said that she found the examples and applications of Crystal Ball, a spreadsheet-based computer program for risk analysis, especially helpful. She added that projects can have a positive impact on the country only if they are properly evaluated beforehand.
“You have to consider all aspects related to the project, including NPV [net present value], the impact of different actors, the ability to pay, the project contract, distributional analysis, risk analysis, and the analysis of efficiency,” she said.
Fernholz has lectured on public debt, finance, balance of payments and macroeconomic issues in workshops in various countries for DCID, the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID), and agencies such as the World Bank. He has also done long- and short-term advisory work in countries such as Indonesia, Zambia, Malawi, Ecuador, Russia, Bolivia, Jamaica, Honduras and Haiti.
Cossio, former deputy finance minister of Bolivia, has 17 years of advisory experience in development policy, tax policy, revenue generation, cost-benefit analysis and fiscal management. He has completed more than 50 consulting and training assignments during his career.
