USA
PPP in USA
The practice of public-private partnership (PPP) in the United States has a long and extensive history. The earliest formats appeared more than two hundred years ago during the formation of the American state.
Now in the country there are thousands of successful PPP between the federal and municipal governments and the business community.
The most common areas of cooperation are the modernization of infrastructure, development of the transport system, efficient use of water resources, waste disposal, etc. Today, according to the National Institute of Public Private Partnership, in average 65 of the municipal service departments - 23 of them operate in the PPP format (over 30%).
The legal definition of PPP is found in Article 6305 of the U.S. Code on the application of cooperation agreements between the federal government and local authorities, as well as other interested counterparties (Using cooperative agreement).
In practice, the interaction between the parties is governed by federal and state legislation to be approved by Congress (in the case of national programs), or by the local legislative assembly.
The classical example of PPP is a package of anti crisis incentives (Recovery and Reinvestment Act), passed in 2009 with the filing of U.S. President Barack Obama, the volume of 787 billion dollars, in the implementation of which involved nearly three dozen federal agencies.
The scheme of distribution of funds is as follows. After the approval of the Congress of the U.S. Treasury sends money to the account of each of a participating federal agencies. Then these funds on the basis of a review of relevant applications are allocated directly in the form of grants and loans to research centers, businesses, NGOs and local authorities.
However, local authorities distribute the received allocations from the federal budget in a similar way. For individuals there are tax deductions and exemptions (property taxes, compensation on account of the cost of college tuition, etc.). Chief Inspector (part of the White House) carries control over spending. To improve the transparency of the activities, reports are published on the Internet on a dedicated website (www.recovery.gov).
According to the U.S. Treasury Department, the top three recipients of the largest funds were Ministry of Health (" 94 billion), the Ministry of Education (" 65 billion) and the Ministry of Labor (" 62 billion). This distribution of funds is not random. The development of "human capital" - one of the priorities of the current administration. In addition, a number of programs of international assistance in the context of the U.S. commitment are being realized through these agencies to achieve the "Millennium Development Goals".
However, it should be noted that in the U.S., both in international humanitarian activities, and on domestic economic direction of PPP implemented as a rule, only by U.S. contractors. This condition (also known as the «buy American») severely limits the ability of foreign contractors.
