Impact of Private Sector Participation on access and quality of services: systematic review of evidence from the electricity, telecommunications and water supply sectors

Individual studies on the impact of such Private Sector Participation (PSP) have yielded mixed results. This study synthesises evidence on the impact of PSP on access and quality outcomes. Studies to be included for the review were selected using well-defined inclusion, exclusion and quality appraisal criteria. Meta-regression analysis of 90 observations from 17 econometric studies was used to synthesise the evidences. Evidence on access was stronger as compared to that of quality. This indicated that PSP as a tool for improving quality of services has not been effective. Among the three sectors studied, telecom sector showed the strongest evidence of a true empirical effect between access and PSP, indicating that PSP has been an effective strategy to improve telecom access. In the case of electricity and water supply, the evidence indicated a positive and negative impact on access, respectively, though the effect was not significant. Overall, the results suggested that the effectiveness of PSP in improving access and quality in infrastructure services delivery has been limited and underlines the need for creating appropriate monitoring and incentive structures to make PSP interventions more effective in improving outcomes.