Only one capacity type is assigned to a project so capacity type selected is the one that best represents the primary service provided by the project:

• KM is used for road, railway, energy transmission and submarine or land cables
• MW of installed capacity is used for electricity generation projects
• Cubic meters per day (thousand) is used for water treatment plant projects
• Number of installed connections (in thousands) is used for water or electricity distribution projects
• Throughput (thousands of TEUs per year) is used for seaport container terminals.
• Throughput (thousands of tons per year) is used for other seaport terminals.
• Population (in thousands) is used for water or electricity distribution projects when information on number of installed connections is not available
• Number of runways is used for airports.
• Number of working locomotives and cars for railway projects which did not include fixed assets (kms for railways)

This is the method that the government uses to award the contract to a private consortium. The options are:

Competitive bidding
Competitive negotiation
Direct negotiation
License Scheme

The International Development Association (IDA), member of the World Bank Group, classifies low- and middle- income countries based on the per capita income and ability to borrow on market terms. There are three categories:

IDA: Countries that are eligible for IDA resources on the basis of low per capita income and lack of creditworthiness to borrow on market terms

Blend: This category is used to classify countries that are eligible for IDA resources on the basis of per capita income but also have limited creditworthiness to borrow from IBRD.

Non-IDA: Countries that are only eligible to borrow from IBRD based on per capita income

Data in the Private Participation in Infrastructure Project Database currently uses the World Bank classification by IDA status of each low- and middle-income country published in July 2012.

The World Bank classifies developing economies in three groups based on per capita income:

low-income

lower middle-income

upper-middle-income

Data on the Private Participation in Infrastructure Projects Database currently use the World Bank classification by income group of each developing economy published in July 2012.

Direct government support are government liabilities that directly cover project costs, either in cash or in-kind, and are certain to occur. It can be a fixed payment or variable depending on a specified formula. Payments can bein installments or all at once. We now classify direct government support further as follows:

• Capital subsidy:These are cash subsidies for capital investments of the project, i.e. to cover the costs of the physical assets during construction
• Revenue subsidy: These are cash subsidies for revenue support, i.e. to help the private party recoup its investment during the operational phase of the project, such as availability payments or shadow tolls.
• In-kind: These are in-kind contributions to the project (i.e. land)

The definition of financial or contractual closure varies among types of private participation as a result of availability of public information:

• For management and lease contracts, a contract authorizing the commencement of management or lease service must be signed with the private consortium assuming the operation of the services.
• For brownfield projects, contractual closure is reached when the concession agreement is signed, and the date for taking over the operations is set.
• For greenfield projects, financial closure is the date that whereby a) there is the existence of a legally binding commitment of equity holders and/or debt financiers to provide or mobilize funding for the full cost of the project; and b) the conditions for funding have been met and the first tranche of funding is mobilized. If this information is not available, construction start date is used as an estimated financial closure date.
• For divestitures, the equity holders must have a legally binding commitment to acquire the assets of the facility. Such commitment usually occurs at the signing of the share purchase contract

• Indirect government support are either contingent liabilities (liabilities that may not actually occur as they are contingent on a predetermined event) or government policies that support investment. The categories under indirect government support are:
• Payment Guarantee: This is when a government agrees to fulfill the obligations of a purchaser (typically a state-owned-enterprise) of the infrastructure good in the case of non-performance by the purchaser. The most common example of this is when a government guarantees the fixed payment of an off-take agreement (e.g. Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), Water Purchase Agreement (WPA)) between a private entity and a state-owned enterprise.
• Debt Guarantee: This is when a government secures the borrowings of a private entity. That is, a government guarantees repayment to creditors in the case of a default by a private entity.
• Revenue Guarantee: This is when a government sets a minimum income for the private operator; typically this income is from user fee payments by end-use customers. This form of guarantee is most common in roads with minimum traffic or revenue set by a government.
• Exchange Rate Guarantee: This is when a government protects a private entity from fluctuations in the value of the local currency. For example, the government will agree to reimburse the private entity for losses on debt services if the value of the local currency dips by, say, 20 percent or greater.
• Construction Cost Guarantee: This is when a government protects a private entity from potential cost overruns in the construction phase of a project.
• Interest Rate Guarantee: This is when a government protects a private entity from fluctuations in interest rates. Basically, this is the same concept as an exchange rate guarantee with respect to local interest rates.
• Tariff rate guarantee: This is when the government guarantees a minimum tariff level for the project.
• Tax deduction/Government credit:Tax deduction/Government credit: This is when the government provides a tax incentive or government credit to encourage infrastructure in a specific sector (often in renewables). Note: This is only considered government support if it is specific to the project or type of project. General corporate tax incentives, for example, are not considered government support.

Resources the project company commits to invest in facilities during the contract period. Investments can be either in new facilities or in expansion and modernization of existing facilities. Data entry varies across sectors:

• For projects other than telecommunications and large energy utilities, the total cost of developing or expanding the facility during the contract period is entered as investment data in the year of financial closure (for which data are typically available).
• For telecommunications projects and some large energy utilities, annual investments on facility expansion and modernization are entered as investment data in the year of investment when information is publicly available.

Investments are recorded in millions of US dollars in either the year of financial closure or year of investment as indicated above.

• The information tracked under multilateral support includes name of multilateral bank providing financial support, type of multilateral support and amount.
• The types of financial support tracked are:
• Equity. Some multilateral institutions are allowed to invest in equity, such as IFC and ADB.
• Guarantees. These include political risk coverage and partial credit guarantees, which turn medium-term finance into a longer-term arrangement by guaranteeing longer maturity or offering liquidity guarantees in the form of put options and take-out financing.
• Loan. Direct loan using the multilateral institution funds (also referred to as A-loan).
• Quasi-equity. These products have both debt and equity characteristics and some of them are convertible debt, subordinated loan investments, and preferred stock and income note investments (also referred to as C-loan).
• Risk management. The risk management products, or derivatives, allow project companies to hedge currency, interest rate, or commodity price exposure. Some of them are currency and interest rate swap, options and forward contracts and derivatives.
• Syndication. A multilateral institution arranges the financing with the resources of other investors, but the institution is always the lender-of-record (also referred to as B-loan).
• Other As types of financial support may vary, there is an option to add something that is not yet included.
• NOTE: The database does not track non-financial support from multilaterals, such as transaction advisory support.

This is the most detailed definition of infrastructure services provided by a project. See Subsector, Sector, and Technology/Fuel. The segments by subsector are:

• Collection and Transport- Waste Collection, Waste Transport, and both
• Treatment/Disposal -Sorting and Recycling, Mechanical and Biological Treatment, Incineration/ Waste to Energy, and Sanitary Landfill
• electricity - generation, transmission, and distribution
• natural - gas Transmission and distribution
• ICT – ICT backbone like hard infrastructure cable assets (such as fiber optic networks and other types of broadband networks) where the government is involved either through being a contracting authority (i.e. a party to a concession agreement), the owner of the assets, or some other form of government support.
• airports - runway and terminal
• ports - channel dredging and terminal
• railways - fixed assets, freight, local passenger/light rail, and regional passenger
• roads - bridge, highway, and tunnel
• treatment plant – potable and sewerage treatment plants
• utilities – water utilities with and without sewerage service, sewerage collection and treatment

The status of projects in the database can be one of the following options:

• Active for projects that are under construction (or about to start construction) or operational
• Concluded for which the contract period has expired and was neither renewed nor extended by either the government or the operator
• Canceled projects from which the private sector has exited in one of the following ways:
• selling or transferring its economic interest back to the government before fulfilling the contract terms
• removing all management and personnel from the concern
• ceasing operation, service provision, or construction for 15 percent or more of the license or concession period, following the revocation of the license or repudiation of the contract
• Distressed projects where the government or the operator has either requested contract termination or are in international arbitration.

The Private Participation in Infrastructure Projects Database divides each sector in subsectors as follows, see Sector and Segment:

• energy - electricity and natural gas
• transport - airports, ports, railways, and roads
• water and sewerage - treatment plants and utilities
• ICT – ICT backbone
• municipal solid waste -collection and transport, treatment/disposal, integrated municipal solid waste

The database identifies sub-categories for each of the four types of projects:

• Management and Lease Contracts. A private entity takes over the management of a public asset for a fixed period while ownership and investment decisions remain with the state.There are two subclasses of management and lease contracts:
• Management contract. Management contracts transfer responsibility for managing a utility to a private operator, often for three to five years. The ones considered PPPs are the ones that aim for efficiency by defining performance targets and basing the fee in part on their fulfillment. The payments are typically made up of a fixed sum and an incentive based fee for achieving specified results.
• Lease contract (including affermage contracts). The term "lease” is used here for a class of arrangements under which an operator is responsible for operating and maintaining the business, but not for financing investment.
• Greenfield Projects. A private entity or a public-private joint venture builds and operates a new facility for the period specified in the project contract. The private entity takes on much of the financial and operational risk, and recoups its investments through the life of the project. The Database classifies Greenfield projects in four categories:
• Build, lease, and transfer. A private sponsor builds a new facility largely at its own risk, transfers ownership to the government, leases the facility from the government and operates it at its own risk, then receives full ownership of the facility at the end of the concession period.
• Build, operate, and transfer. A private sponsor builds a new facility at its own risk, owns and operates the facility at its own risk, then transfers the facility to the government at the end of the contract period.
• Build, own, and operate. A private sponsor builds a new facility at its own risk, then owns and operates the facility at its own risk.
• Merchant. A private sponsor builds a new facility in a liberalized market in which the government provides no revenue or payment guarantees. The private developer assumes construction, operating, and market risk for the project (for example, a merchant power plant).
• Rental. A private sponsor places a new facility at its own risk, owns and operates the facility at its own risk.
• Brownfields. Brownfields are similar to Greenfields except that instead of building a new asset, the private entity takes over an existing asset and usually makes an improvement to it (rehabilitation) or expands it. They often take over operations of the existing asset first and then undertakes the capital investment. Like Greenfields, the private entity usually has operational responsibility for a set amount of time, during it recoups its investment from operation of the project, after which the project may revert back to the public sector. The Database classifies brownfields according to the following categories:
• Rehabilitate, operate, and transfer. A private sponsor rehabilitates an existing facility, then operates and maintains the facility at its own risk for the contract period.
• Rehabilitate, lease or rent, and transfer. A private sponsor rehabilitates an existing facility at its own risk, leases or rents the facility from the government owner, then operates and maintains the facility at its own risk for the contract period.
• Build, rehabilitate, operate, and transfer. A private developer builds an add-on to an existing facility or completes a partially built facility and rehabilitates existing assets, then operates and maintains the facility at its own risk for the contract period.
• Divestitures. A private entity buys an equity stake in a state-owned enterprise through an asset sale, public offering, or mass privatization program. A divestiture, like a concession, gives the private operator full responsibility for operations, maintenance, and investment. The Database classifies divestitures in two categories:
• Full. The government transfers 100 percent of the equity in the state-owned company to private entities (operator, institutional investors, and the like).
• Partial. The government transfers part of the equity in the state-owned company to private entities (operator, institutional investors, and the like). Share sales can be done in tranches. The private stake may or may not imply private management of the facility.

The database classifies private infrastructure projects in four categories:

• management and lease contracts
• brownfield projects
• greenfield projects
• divestitures

The definitions of Types of Private Participation can be found under the definition of Sub-type of Private Participation.