Case Study Public–Private Partnership Risks in Conflict Zones and Solutions: Case Study for Afghanistan Esmatullah Noorzai, M.ASCE 1 Abstract: Insufficient studies on public–private partnership (PPP) risks in conflict zones, and thus lack of knowledge to provide effective and feasible solutions to these risks, are the major reasons for the failure of PPP infrastructure projects in these areas, especially in Afghanistan. This research aims to identify appropriate responses to PPP risks in these projects and prioritize the implementation of risk responses. To achieve this goal, experts were requested to provide strategies to mitigate 23 PPP risks and suggest the time required to implement them. Finally, the applicability of mitigation measures was investigated by prioritizing them based on the scores obtained from the product of three factors, namely the importance of each risk and the solution’ s feasibility and effectiveness. Although the most critical risk was determined to be the impossibility of providing physical security, the most applicable solution was related to the government’ s insufficient commitment to carry out its obligations. The identified risks are common among conflict states, but this research focused on Afghanistan. However, the introduced solutions can be employed as a new collection for the risk response development in countries with conditions similar to Afghanistan. Furthermore, the findings can expand the use of PPP and improve the risk distribution in such projects. DOI: 10.1061/ (ASCE)IS.1943-555X.0000599. © 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers. Author keywords: Public–private partnership (PPP) risks; Risk response; Infrastructure projects; Conflict zone; Afghanistan. Introduction Public–private partnerships (PPPs) have been widely employed in both developed and developing countries to procure infrastructure projects since the late 1990s (Harris 2003; Osei-Kyei et al. 2019). Given the different structures of PPPs compared with other meth- ods, the existing risks of these contracts require precise assessment (Golabchi and Noorzai 2013). Therefore, it is rather complicated to employ PPP contracts around the world, even in developed coun- tries. In addition, to have a successful PPP implementation, the effect of several variables at various levels (country, project, and individual risks) on different risk-allocation systems should be measured. Consequently, it can be found which mechanism is more suitable under what conditions (Thomas et al. 2003; Bing et al. 2005). Despite the fact that many investigations have been conducted in the field of PPP risks, further studies in this area can illuminate the difficulties in implementing PPP and enhance these projects’ success (Ahmadabadi and Heravi 2019; World Bank 2012a; Cruz and Marques 2013a). Extensive research on PPPs has been performed, focusing more on different PPP models, risk manage- ment, and relationships (Tang et al. 2010; Zhang et al. 2016), all of which are connected to resolve the inherent conflict between the private and public sectors (Caldwell et al. 2017; Mahoney et al. 2009; Solheim-Kile et al. 2019). By taking into account the values and interests of these two parties, the most efficient policy to use PPPs can be developed (Abednego and Ogunlana 2006). Having said that, researchers have rarely tried to identify and evaluate PPP risks and determine effective solutions in conflict states (Bayat et al. 2019). However, the special conditions in con- flict zones turn it into an issue with more complexity than common zones. Some extra contributing factors should be considered to en- sure the success of PPP projects in conflict regions because armed groups and foreign forces, as a third party involved, plus public and private sectors, disrupt all of the equations (Chen 2017). In Afghanistan, largely recognized as a high-risk country with the military presence of 28 nations, the government faces critical issues to deliver infrastructure projects through PPPs. Therefore, despite the massive body of literature on PPP risks, it is felt that identifying and addressing these risks in conflict zones have been mostly ignored (Bayat et al. 2019; Chen 2017). To fill this gap, with a focus on the experiences in Afghanistan, the current research has attempted to propose a risk plan to help authorities advance such projects in other similar countries in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. Bayat et al. (2019) identified, analyzed, and categorized PPP risks in Afghanistan. The present research aims to provide efficient responses to these risks. The unique feature of this study is that it directly measures the feasibility of the proposed solutions and the amount of improvement resulted from their implementation in in- frastructure projects in Afghanistan, as an example of conflict states. Furthermore, this paper not only prioritizes these risk re- sponses considering the risk importance and the solutions’ feasibil- ity and impact but also determines the time needed to execute the guidelines. Literature Review PPP Risk Management Because inefficient risk management of PPP infrastructure projects has negative effects throughout the life cycle of these projects (Beckers et al. 2013), several researchers have investigated PPP risk management. Risk-management strategies do not completely 1 Lecturer, Dept. of Project and Construction Management, School of Architecture, Univ. of Tehran, Tehran 1415564583, Iran. ORCID: https:// orcid.org/0000-0001-5547-1158. Email: esmatullah.noorzai1980@gmail .com Note. This manuscript was submitted on September 19, 2019; approved on October 14, 2020; published online on January 8, 2021. Discussion period open until June 8, 2021; separate discussions must be submitted for individual papers. This paper is part of the Journal of Infrastructure Systems, © ASCE, ISSN 1076-0342. © ASCE 05021001-1 J. Infrastruct. Syst. J. Infrastruct. Syst., 2021, 27(1): 05021001 Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Esmatullah Noorzai on 01/10/21. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.