A multicriteria decision framework for governance of PPP projects towards sustainable development

The lack of a suitable decision framework for the governance of public-private partnership (PPP) projects in Africa, especially Ghana, is a major setback to project success, retarding sustainable development. This study develops a hierarchical decision framework for prioritizing project governance factors and their relationships using the Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method. We employ 30 experts to evaluate two main PPP governance factors and eleven subfactors. We found that contractual governance factors of PPP are more prominent than noncontractual ones for sustainable PPP projects. However, noncontractual governance factors have the highest net effect on contractual factors. Again, policy diffusion is the contractual factor with the highest net effect, while best practice team norm is the noncontractual factor with the highest net effect. Additionally, effective risk allocation is the most prominent contractual subfactor of PPP, while effective communication of project information is the most prominent noncontractual governance factor. The results imply that PPP project managers should improve governance factors for the sustainable development of PPP projects in Africa. However, they should emphasize the prominent and high net effect governance factors but not wholly disregard the less prominent ones. •Contractual governance factors of PPP are more prominent than noncontractual ones.•Noncontractual governance factors have the highest net effect on contractual factors.•Policy diffusion is the contractual factor with the highest net effect.•Best practice team norm is the noncontractual factor with the highest net effect.