Port risk management and public private partnerships: factors relating to risk allocation and risk sustainability

Ports are complex operations involving government and private-sector partners in creating economic benefits and in identifying, managing and absorbing economic, environmental and security risks. Allocation and assessment of risks is necessitated and facilitated by the diversity of organisations involved. Allocation of the cost of risks among the partners or its transfer to outside agencies through insurance or financing arrangements is essential. However, this allocation is not purely a function of attributes of the risks themselves and their controllability by each of the partners but depends in part on factors such as power structures within partnerships and capacity to absorb risks.