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AbstractPublic-Private Partnerships (PPP) is one of the mechanisms that have gained popularity in the delivery of infrastructure across the world, not being an exception to Nigeria. Nonetheless, conflicts between stakeholders have often compromised their performance, in most instances causing delays, cost escalations and even project cancellations. This paper examined how much of non-adversarial dispute resolution techniques have been used in PPP infrastructure projects and their impact on project delivery in Southwest Nigeria. It utilized a quantitative survey research design where data were collected through 379 respondents who were selected to participate in the study as government agencies, private concessionaires, contractors and consultants involved in PPP projects. They were elicited with structured interviews in the forms of questionnaires and analyzed with descriptive statistics and Relative Importance Index (RII), Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), and regression analysis. The results indicated that the most commonly used mechanisms of dispute resolution were negotiation (RII 0.824) and arbitration (RII 0.818) and the least used mechanisms were mini-trials (RII 0.564) and Dispute Review Boards (RII 0.539). The results of ANOVA showed that there were no differences that were significant between the usage of non-adversarial techniques by firms of different size (F 0.017, p 0.983). Regression findings also indicated that the non-adversarial dispute resolution methods did not have a significant impact on the project delivery of PPP (R 2 0.001, p 0.482). The paper finds that though non-adversarial strategies are integrated into PPP contracts, the impact that these strategies have on the project performance is not demonstrated significantly. It suggests stronger institutions, awareness of stakeholders, and better contractual structures to make sure that dispute resolution can play a more significant role in the delivery of infrastructure in Nigeria.

Copyright © 2025 Akinyemi, O. A. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.