The governments closest to the works, and the ministries that answer for them.
A PPP signed by a region or a municipality is a fiscal commitment of that government for twenty or thirty years — and, in most of Latin America, a commitment the central government registers, authorises or ends up backing. The programme is built for both sides of that relationship.
Regional governments and municipalities in Chile
Regional and municipal works that can be delivered with private participation, where the first question is fiscal — can this government carry the commitment? — and the second is which projects deserve one.
States in Mexico
State governments that procure PPPs under their own frameworks and pipelines, and the state finance secretariats that must carry the resulting commitments and contingent liabilities on the state's accounts.
Departments in Colombia and Peru
Departmental and regional governments with PPP pipelines that work under a national rule for subnational debt. The diagnostic can be scored against the rule the government already reports under, not only against generic bands.
The central units that oversee them
Ministries of finance, subnational-debt and PPP units, planning bodies and comptrollers that authorise, register or supervise subnational commitments. The programme gives them the same reading of every region, on the same scale, and a portfolio screened with the same criteria.
Four steps, each on a tool the client keeps.
The sequence matters: a project is not screened before the government's own finances are read, and no Public Sector Comparator is built for a project that has not passed the eligibility gate. Every step runs on a module of the Austral Platform, in the client's own workspace, on the client's own data.
| Step | What is done | What the client keeps |
|---|---|---|
| Step 01Subnational fiscal diagnosticModule: Subnational Fiscal Risk | A fiscal-risk health check of the government itself before any project is discussed: revenue autonomy (dependency on transfers), debt burden, debt-service capacity, operating balance, liquidity and contingent liabilities — each indicator rated and rolled up to an overall risk rating with flags. Scored against the default World Bank / IMF screening bands or against a cited national rule where one exists (Colombia's Law 358 traffic light, Peru's subnational fiscal rule). Several governments can be scored and ranked in one pass, on the same thresholds. | The diagnostic workspace with its data, the thresholds used and their source, and the report in spreadsheet and PDF — re-runnable by the client's team every fiscal year, and comparable across regions. |
| Step 02Project eligibilityModule: PPP Eligibility Screen | Every candidate project through the gate before the gate: the eight yes/no suitability criteria of the screening stage of the World Bank PPP Reference Guide — need for the infrastructure, output-based definition, sufficient size, stable legal framework, real scope for risk transfer, measurable service quality, institutional capacity and market interest. One “no” means the project is not yet suitable for PPP delivery, with what would have to change. Pass, Fail or In progress, with the reasoning behind each answer. | A screened portfolio: every candidate with its verdict and the reason for it, the projects that passed ordered for the next step, and the screen itself for the next candidate the government receives. |
| Step 03Value for Money and the Public Sector ComparatorModule: Value for Money | For the projects that passed: the quantitative comparison of the risk-adjusted Public Sector Comparator against the PPP alternative, with competitive-neutrality adjustments, the risk-allocation matrix, cost of equity, sensitivity across discount rates and risk-transfer values, and Monte Carlo on the uncertain inputs. Each assessment closes with a VfM report the government can put in front of its council, its legislature or its ministry of finance. | One VfM assessment per project, with its report and the assumptions on record, and the comparator ready for the projects that come after. |
| Step 04Training and transferThe client's workspace on the Austral Platform | Hands-on training of the government's team on its own data and its own projects, the methodology documented in the language the team works in, and the workspace — users, roles, shared projects — set up to be run without us. The three earlier steps are done with the team, not for it, so that by the end the cycle has already been run once by the people who will run it next. | The capacity: a team that operates the tools when the engagement ends, and the tools themselves. What stays behind is a working practice, not a binder. |
Published international methods; Austral products.
Nothing in the programme rests on a proprietary black box. Each step applies a method that is published, cited and auditable, and the platform states which one it is applying. The methods are credited; the tools are Austral's.
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IMF methodological note on subnational fiscal risk
The five analytical dimensions — fiscal capacity and flexibility, operating performance, liquidity management, debt capacity and asset management — and the diagnose → oversee → disclose chain that Step 01 operationalises into a scored, ranked reading of the government's own finances.
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OECD Working Paper on subnational fiscal risk
The operating definition of fiscal risk and the six-source taxonomy that Step 01's indicators and thresholds are built on, together with the subnational debt-sustainability practice reflected in national statutory frameworks.
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PFRAM 2.0 (World Bank–IMF)
The fiscal treatment of a PPP: firm commitments, contingent liabilities and how they land on the government's accounts. The reference against which the programme's fiscal reading of each project is aligned — co-developed by Austral's founder.
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World Bank PPP Reference Guide
The screening stage that defines the eligibility criteria of Step 02, and the Value for Money and Public Sector Comparator method of Step 03.
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OECD Principles for Public Governance of PPPs (OECD/LEGAL/0392)
Affordability, Value for Money and the budget process as the governance frame of the whole programme — and the frame under which a central unit reads what its regions are committing to.
The World Bank's City Creditworthiness self-assessment tool is a complementary reading: a qualitative questionnaire on a local government's practices and enabling environment, scored by challenge intensity rather than financial ratios. It covers ground the diagnostic above does not — institutional and process quality — but it is not the basis for Step 01's ratio engine.
Four deliverables, and the platform they were produced on.
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Subnational fiscal diagnostic reportThe government's risk rating and flags, indicator by indicator, with the thresholds applied and their source — and, where several governments are assessed, the ranking among them.
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Screened project portfolioEvery candidate project through the eligibility gate, with its verdict and the reasons; the projects that pass, ordered for Value for Money; the ones that do not, with what would have to change.
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Value for Money assessmentsPublic Sector Comparator against the PPP alternative for each project that passed, with the risk-allocation matrix, sensitivity and the VfM report.
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Training plan and transferSessions on the client's own data, the methodology documented, the workspace and its users set up — and the team running the next cycle without us.
Scope, sequence and depth are set with each client — a single region, a portfolio of municipalities, or a central unit reading all of them. Ask for a proposal.
Ask for a proposal, or open the platform first.
For a government or a ministry
Tell us which governments and which projects. We come back with the scope of the four steps for your case — and with the tools your team will keep.
For a development bank or a programme
The programme can be run across a set of subnational governments under one technical-assistance operation, with every government read on the same scale and every project screened with the same criteria.