03 August 2007

GPPi publishes results of an international benchmarking study

GPPi’s consulting team published a new report on public-private partnerships in development entitled "Engaging Business in Development. Results of an International Benchmarking Study". The report, written by Andrea Binder, Markus Palenberg and Jan Martin Witte, is one output of a larger study entitled "Principles for a "Best Practice" Strategy in the Use of Public-Private Partnerships in German Development Assistance" that was conducted from September 2006 to July 2007 on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). The report was published as part of GPPi’s Research Paper Series.  

The report aims to develop a deeper understanding of and extract best practice experiences from partnership programs launched by bilateral donor agencies. The benchmarking focuses on partnerships with business in the context of technical cooperation. It includes six donors: Canada (CIDA), Denmark (Danida), Germany (BMZ), The Netherlands (DGIS), the UK (DFID) and the USA (USAID). In addition, the World Bank Development Grant Facility (DGF) was included because it leads the field in monitoring and evaluation - something all bilateral programs still consider a challenge.  

The report finds that donors have developed a variety of different approaches to building partnerships with the business community. These approaches can be grouped into three basic partnership models: Probing Business Opportunities (PBO), Fostering Sustainable Business (FSB) and Corporate Development Responsibility (CDR). None of the three program models is necessarily superior to the others, rather, each pursues quite distinctive objectives in an attempt to capitalize on different areas in which the interests of donors and companies intersect.  

Despite the diversity of program models, four general conclusions can be drawn:  

1) Partnership programs that are focused on engaging business in technical development cooperation are just one of manifold ways in which development agencies can leverage the resources and expertise of the business community to address global development challenges.  

2) Partnership programs need to manage a fine balance between a sufficiently flexilbe design in and the close alignment of the partnerships with overall donor development strategies.  

3) Contrary to the general trend in bilateral development cooperation to design programs that generate structural impacts at either the meso- or macro-levels, the partnership programs surveyed in this benchmarking report operate primarily at the micro-level. However, that does not imply that partnership projects cannot generate second-order effects: Moreover, micro-level projects still have an important contribution to make, especially when they establish models that can be replicated or scaled up.  

4) While some donors have made initial strides into evaluation, so far only very little is known about the development impact of partnership programs. One way to address some of these challenges is through enhanced donor collaboration.  

For more information, please contact Jan Martin Witte

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