Leila Khan
For decades, Pakistan has struggled under the weight of inefficient state-owned enterprises and overstretched public services. Schools with missing teachers, hospitals short of medicines, airports that barely function, and a railway system running perpetual losses. It does not have to be this way. Around the world, governments have discovered a middle path between full privatisation and bloated bureaucracy, the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model. This approach allows states to retain ownership and oversight while private operators bring efficiency, investment, and innovation.
Turkey’s city hospitals, developed through PPP, have attracted billions in investment and dramatically raised healthcare standards. Japan’s railways stand out as one of the most successful PPP cases globally, with private companies running efficient, profitable networks. Closer to home, Saudi Arabia’s Taif International Airport is being developed through a PPP framework, while Jordan’s As-Samra Wastewater Treatment Plant has become a flagship model of how private operators can deliver vital infrastructure. In Qatar, sewage treatment plants have also been awarded under PPP agreements.
These examples underline a simple truth: PPP is not about selling national assets. It is about creating a structure where public interest and private efficiency work together. For Pakistan, the most urgent starting points are education, health, transport, energy, and municipal services.
Provincial governments still run thousands of primary and secondary schools, many of them dysfunctional. The state must step back from daily management and transform into a regulator. By handing schools to private operators through transparent, competitive mechanisms tied to performance benchmarks, accountability and innovation can replace bureaucratic apathy.
The same principle applies to health. Public hospitals are underfunded, overwhelmed, and mismanaged. With PPPs, private operators could manage hospital operations more efficiently while the government ensures affordability and access through programs like the Sehat Card. Turkey’s healthcare experience shows how this balance can work.
Transport is another sector crying out for reform. The government has taken steps to hand over airports under PPP and government-to-government models, but Pakistan Railways continues to bleed public money. A phased approach could begin by leasing its schools, hospitals, and surplus land to private investors, with the revenue channelled into upgrading tracks and signalling. Once modernised, private operators could be invited to run trains, just as they do in Japan, the UK, and increasingly in Saudi Arabia’s transport sector.
Energy distribution is equally critical. Pakistan’s power distribution companies, the Discos, remain plagued by inefficiency, circular debt, and mounting losses. The government has already initiated a privatisation push, with Expressions of Interest for IESCO, GEPCO, and FESCO expected in 2025. Yet there are concerns about targeting only the most efficient Discos for sale and delays in transferring assets to make the process viable. Here too, PPPs could provide a middle ground, concession agreements where private partners manage distribution zones under regulatory oversight, ensuring accountability, investment, and better service delivery without a messy sell-off.
Finally, Pakistan cannot ignore its crumbling municipal services. Cities are overwhelmed by broken water supply systems, untreated sewage, and poor waste management. Jordan’s As-Samra project has shown how wastewater treatment can be modernised under private-sector management, while Qatar’s sewage system, through a PPP model, proves how urban services can be upgraded through structured partnerships. For Pakistan’s rapidly expanding cities, such models could directly improve urban living and public health.
The government simply cannot afford to run everything. With shrinking fiscal space, it must focus on governance and regulation rather than clinging to outdated models of direct management. PPPs offer a pragmatic way forward: a means to improve efficiency, raise revenue, and reduce the financial burden on the state while ensuring better services for citizens.
Pakistan’s survival depends on reimagining how public services are delivered. Full-scale privatisation remains politically sensitive, but PPPs provide a practical middle road, realistic, accountable, and reform-oriented. It is not about surrendering control; it is about building partnerships where public interest and private competence reinforce each other.
The writer is a former State Minister for Education and Professional Training, former Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan, Chairperson of the Prime Minister’s Youth Programme and Director at Media Times.
