Business Partners for Development (BPD) was a project based initiative, involving more than 120 different organisations in 30 focus projects, carried out by the four clusters; Natural Resource Cluster (for the extractive industries) the Water and Sanitation Cluster, the Global Partnership for Youth Development (GPYD) and the Global Road Safety Partnership (GRSP).
Its objective was to study, support and promote strategic examples of how private sector, civil society and government can work together through Tri-Sector Partnering, to put communities at the centre of development and deliver benefits to communities and business
Tri-sector partnering is a new approach that harnesses the comparative advantages - the complementary resources, knowledge and skills- of partners drawn from all three sectors of society and strengthens their impact through formalised interaction and collaboration.
The main output of BPD’s activities is a report that provides an analytical compilation of the lessons learned across BPD’s focus project partnerships; a checklist of the preconditions of partnership; guidance on when partnering is not the best approach to take; and a set of tools on how to develop successful tri-sector partnerships, including guidance notes, frameworks, draft Memorandum of Understanding and training modules. Each Cluster has developed its own learning materials and there are extensive reports and findings available on line, including case studies.
Measurable results and specific
targets:
The different tri-sector partnering projects around the world have shown real, tangible development benefits to the local communities including increased access to resources, such as health, education, water and sanitation; poverty mitigation; and the development of human capital and community empowerment.
Benefits to companies include the securing of an informal social ‘license to operate’; the reduction of dependency of the local communities; the sharing of costs; the winning of new contracts based on past performance; and the improvement of existing performance (financial or otherwise).
Benefits to the governments include using partnerships as a mechanism for both improving the impact of its own activities and for promoting greater accountabilities across the board.
Implementation mechanisms
and further application:
Actively engaging communities in the implementation stage of the partnerships has enhanced the transfer of project management skills and energised local communities looking to pursue more partnership projects in the future. The 30 partnership projects in BPD will continue in their own right, as will three of the Clusters.
Tri-sector partnering ensures that the local government and community remain involved and accountable for their share of the project; broadens the scope of community investment programmes; speeds up the delivery of benefits; and enables the company to focus on those aspects of community development it is best placed to deliver.
