PPP

The news circulated yesterday that Mikhail Beketov, a Russian journalist who campaigned against corrupt practices in connection to the planned highway construction through Khimki Forest, has died. This guest post by Mikhail Matveev and Ivan Smirnov, fellow Khimki activists, tells Beketov's story.

A $3.7 billion PPP oil refinery expansion in Cairo is accompanied by contradictory project documents, making a mockery of claims by the public banks involved to be committed to “good governance” or democracy. Despite being presented as merely translations of one document, the Arabic and English “versions” are entirely different – with the Arabic markedly cursory and superficial.

Although public-private partnerships appear to become increasingly untenable for public authorities, they are further being promoted by the European Commission and the European Investment Bank. An official in-depth evaluation of this financing model, however, is still nowhere to be seen.

Europe's anti-crisis measures include efforts to increase private investments in public infrastructure. Yet, a backlash against public-private partnerships in Portugal is a warning against putting too much faith in this approach.

Pushing for public-private partnerships will not support democratisation in the Arab Spring countries but risks increasing their public debt. Our new website brings together the PPP lessons that Europe should have learned.

One of this year's winners of the Goldman Environmental Prize is Russian Khimki Forest defender Evgenia Chirikova, but the good news is being overshadowed by continued violence against other Khimki activists.