The Silent Cost of Missing Data: How USAID's Data Loss Hampers New Public-Private Partnerships in Central America

In recent years, Central America has witnessed a wave of ambitious public-private partnerships (PPPs), especially in critical sectors like infrastructure, energy, and trade. Projects such as Guatemala's Escuintla–Puerto Quetzal toll road, El Salvador's Yilport port concession, and Honduras' interoceanic rail corridor are reshaping regional development prospects. At the heart of many successful past initiatives was USAID's catalytic role—mobilizing capital, aligning incentives, and leveraging partnerships. However, as noted by Development Gateway, USAID's withdrawal of key partnership data has created a "data vacuum" that threatens to undermine the very innovation and scale these new initiatives require.

From 2001 to 2020, USAID documented over 1,900 PPPs, including many in Latin America. This rich repository offered critical insights: what worked, what failed, and why. It informed partner selection, project design, and implementation strategies across sectors. Yet today, much of that institutional memory has vanished from public view. Without access to this legacy data, governments, development finance institutions (DFIs), and private sector actors are left navigating complex investments without important parts of their map.

This loss is particularly concerning given the scale and ambition of emerging initiatives. Take

Guatemala's PEG-5 electricity expansion plan aims to procure 1,400 MW of new capacity through a competitive, renewable-focused process. Or El Salvador's transformation of Acajutla and La Unión ports under a $1.6 billion concession. These types of projects could benefit from USAID's historical PPP data: lessons on tariff structures, community engagement, procurement risk, and investor appetite.

Several past USAID projects illustrate the value of accessible partnership data. The PACE Initiative (Partnering to Accelerate Entrepreneurship) catalyzed over $100 million in private capital by de-risking early-stage investments in Guatemala and beyond. USAID's support to the Asociación de Azucareros de Guatemala included environmental and labor compliance components that would directly apply to new energy and agro-industrial PPPs. The more recent LEIA project (recently canceled) aimed to foster public-private climate resilience initiatives, with tangible targets including training 300 individuals in climate adaptation, establishing 50 MSME-industrial linkages within eco-parks, and mobilizing $25 million for infrastructure.

Moreover, projects like Creating Economic Opportunities (CEO) have demonstrated measurable results: more than 6,100 full-time equivalent jobs were created, $31 million in new non-agricultural sales were generated, and 99 firms improved management practices through USAID-supported technical assistance. While now harder to access, these data points offer important precedents for scaling future projects.

A revival of USAID’s data-sharing practices would support institutional learning and strengthen transparency and trust among stakeholders. It could also catalyze private sector confidence, especially in frontier markets like Central America, where perceived risks often overshadow opportunity.

Rebuilding this repository is not merely about archiving. It is a strategic investment in smarter projects and development. USAID, DFIs, and host governments should prioritize:

1. Recovering and digitizing legacy PPP data through partnerships with think tanks and universities.

2. Creating an open-access PPP knowledge hub with case studies, indicators, and evaluation tools.

3. Embedding knowledge-sharing requirements in new partnership agreements to avoid future data gaps.

Public-private collaboration remains a cornerstone of development in Central America. But without access to the hard-earned insights of the past, the region risks repeating mistakes instead of scaling solutions. The time to restore that institutional memory is now.

Additional Sites:

• DECfinder: Preserving Development Knowledge for the Future