"Putting Partnering to Work"

Executive Summary

Background

Business Partners for Development was designed as a three-year program to study, support and promote strategic examples of tri-sector partnerships - involving business, government and civil society. These partnerships were intended to put communities at the centre of their own sustainable development.

BPD as a whole came to an end in December 2001, as scheduled and launched its report - Putting Partnering to Work- in London on 18th April 2002.

"No one government or organisation can afford to work in isolation. We need to recognise the different strengths and capabilities different organisations have: non-governmental organisations, community-based organisations, the private sector, donor, governments and the faiths. We need to build partnerships and networks at the national and international level, which make the most of these different strengths. "
Rt. Hon Clare Short MP, United Kingdom Secretary of State for International Development

" This is new territory. This is a new way of thinking. And my hope is that we can engage business in this new approach as well because the currency of community development is not just money; it is knowledge; it is experience." James D. Wolfensohn, President, The World Bank Group.

Key Highlights from the Report include:

· An analytical compilation of the lessons learned across BPD's 30 partnerships, involving more than 120 different organisations in 20 different countries.
· A demonstration of the potential benefits of tri-sector partnerships for both communities and for business.
· A checklist of the preconditions of partnership, and guidance on when partnering is not the best approach to take.
· A set of tools on how to develop successful tri-sector partnerships, including guidance notes, frameworks, draft Memoranda of Understanding and training modules.
· Recommendations on operational and policy practises of partnerships for businesses, developing country governments, NGOs, Multilateral and bilateral development agencies

Tri-Sector Partnering

"A management tool to deliver business and social and environmental development outcomes by optimising the effectiveness of different partners' resources and core competencies".

Typical attributes of a Tri-Sector Partnership:
1. Tri-sector partnerships are usually formed through a process that builds mutual understanding, mutual respect and focuses on joint problem-solving and relationship management between company, government and civil society.

2. Often the partnership will be defined by a set of agreements designed to deliver a joint action programme.

3. The collaboration between company, government and civil society is significant because of its pooling of resources and risk, building on core complementary competencies. The different participants need to understand what these are, how they fit together - and what motivates their fellow partners.
· Competencies - resources, roles, responsibilities or behaviour that are the true strengths (sometimes hidden) of the partner in contributing to the social and environmental objectives of the partnership.
· Complementary - resources, roles, responsibilities and behaviour that add value to what each party could achieve alone.
· Core - contributions by each partner that assist the contributing partner to meet its own organisational objectives, for example, competitiveness, poverty reduction or governance.

The Benefits of Tri-Sector Partnering

Community and Development Benefits
The different tri-sector partnering projects around the world have shown real, tangible development benefits including increased access to resources, such as health, education, water and sanitation; poverty mitigation; and the development of human capital and community empowerment.

Business Benefits
The benefits for corporations are wide-ranging and, in the case of the BPD projects, have included winning new contracts based on past performance, improving existing performance (financial or otherwise), gaining know-how and improving public image.

Government Benefits
Governments can use partnership as a mechanism for both improving the impact of its own activities, and for promoting greater accountabilities across the board.

Guidelines for Tri-Sector Partnering - The Partnership Process

The report provides a set of indicators to help each party undertake an internal assessment of the risk, costs, benefits and alternatives of entering into a partnership.

The partnering process can be split into four stages:

1. Partnering Exploration - Internal Assessment and Consultation
· As a general rule, the closer the participants' activities and benefits align with their key business strategy, the more likely the partnership's overall chance of success. Deploying core competencies tends to involve less investment in new capital costs, relying instead on fluctuations in existing, variable, costs.
· Partnering should not even be attempted, if an assessment of the partnering option shows that the costs and the risks are too high compared with the anticipated benefits, or if there are no significant complementarities to be gained from pooling competencies.
· Internal champions and institutional buy-in are both necessary.
· Partnerships are most successful when they are relevant to key business or key organisation objectives.

2. Partnering Building
· Significant time needs to be allocated to building mutual respect and consensus and agree specific commitments, roles and responsibilities guided by the mediation of a partner or third party.
· Initiators, convenors and facilitators all have important roles to play in the development and ongoing effectiveness of a partnership. The public sector in developing countries has a vital role to play both in partnering and in establishing an environment that encourages partnership.
· Organisations entering into a tri-sector partnership often need to build their capacity to work with other sectors.
· Partnering is most successful when partners negotiate and agree on their governance structure through a Memorandum of Understanding and work plans.
· While formal governance structures should be developed, including partnership agreements, experience demonstrates that these must be sufficiently flexible to adapt to changes in context (such as change in government, economic cycles), learning processes, staffing and degree of success.

3. Partnering Maintenance
· Partnership must deliver results that are timely, relative to the schedule of each partner organisation.
· For a partnership to function effectively, no partner should be allowed to dominate.
· Partnerships are 'flexible task forces' - entrance and exit strategies are important for everyone involved.
· A partnership is a dynamic entity. BPD experience has shown that even over a short time frame, roles, responsibilities, and even partnering organisations can all change in a partnership. These changes may reflect those in the external environment, community, funding streams, performance levels and individual relationships. Structures and processes must therefore be established to accommodate and respond to change.

4. Partnering Completion
· A partnership's success often depends on its evolution, for example, in its membership and wider relationships, and in some instances even in its purpose.

Recommendations for the different sectors

Business

Tri-sector partnerships widen the operational ability of the private sector by allowing pooling of skills and know-how from different partners.

Recommendations
· Define clear business objectives.
· Understand your core competencies.
· Seek the long-term benefits.
· Assess partners as carefully as you would assess business partners.
· Commit to transparency.
· Do not rule out improvisation.
· Be prepared for a culture change.
· Communicate.
· Build internal capacity.

Government

Tri-sector partnering enables governments to increase their understanding of local sustainable development priorities. Partnering processes can achieve cost savings, more cost-effective use of public funds and the leveraging of resources from different sectors.

Recommendations
· Consider the relevance of the partnership model.
· Build internal capacity.
· Create enabling environments.
· Scale up partnerships and replicate best practice from other areas.
· Raise awareness of the partnership approach.
· Ensure that the public sector's role within tri-sector partnerships is transparent.

Non Governmental Organisations

NGO participation in partnerships gives them the opportunity to address their institutional weaknesses by expanding and replicating current projects, and accessing financial support. Relationships provide an opportunity to influence policy through sustained dialogue and persuade partners to pursue organisational and operational change.

Recommendations
· Assess the relevance of the proposed partnership.
· Ensure community participation.
· Build internal capacity for partnering.
· Seek a balance of power.
· Recognise that partnering presents risks and agree a structured approach to managing these risks.
· Raise awareness of partnering impact with peers.

Multilateral/Bilateral Agencies

Tri-sector partnering provides an opportunity for multilateral and bilateral institutions to leverage a variety of additional sustainable development resources from a wider range of sectors and actors. It encourages ownership of the development activities by the project stakeholder, rather than reliance on the donor or development agency.

Recommendations
· Take a strategic approach to tri-sector partnerships.
· Develop internal partnership expertise and mindset as it can play an important role in initiating, convening and brokering partnerships.
· Link partnership with core purpose and activities to share knowledge and to ensure that efforts are not duplicated.
· Explore collaborative-shared programmes with other agencies.
· Provide support to partnerships through regional or programmatic initiatives.

More information on partnering tools, benefits and the focus projects can be found on
www.bpdweb.org or by contacting:

Tim Cullen, Tim Cullen Associates
Tel: +44-1865-326323 / Fax: +44-1865-326363 / Mobile: 07979597767
tcullen@timcullen.com

Paul Fisher, Tim Cullen Associates
Tel: +44 -1285 713 776 / Fax: +44 -1285-713 071 / Mobile: 07733224850
pfisher@timcullen.com

Irene Toxopeus, Tim Cullen Associates
Tel: +44 - 207 722 7946/Mobile; 07814 807653
itoxopeus@timcullen.com