Reorganisation of the infrastructure sector and new forms of financing

Until a decade ago, the term “infrastructure” clearly referred to roads, highways, airports, ports, power stations, gas networks, water supplies, sewers and waste disposal systems. Going back only a few decades, there was a widespread conviction that state intervention in the financing of infrastructure was unsustainable: growing needs could simply not be met due to limited public investment resources and the necessity to contain the role of the state in national economies. Since then, the very concept of infrastructure has undergone a “multifaceted” evolution. Typologies have grown in number and new means of financing them have also appeared. As the state has reduced its role as financier, new forms of infrastructure have appeared along with new actors, financiers and procedures in which the state is no longer the sole protagonist. The Public- Private Partnership (PPP) has emerged and developed. For investments in infrastructure, we have moved from public procurement to concession contract and more generally to PPP. Direct intervention by the private sector has also increased. The nature of the infrastructure has changed.