Locally led cross-sector partnerships are critical for sustainable, impactful, and scalable solutions to complex development challenges such as global poverty, food insecurity, climate change, and gender inequity. Although the importance of private sector engagement (PSE) has been embraced for years, many funders continue to overlook the role of local institutions for cross-sector collaboration to drive sustainability and impact outcomes.
Local NGOs, community organizations, governments, social enterprises, universities, and others are best placed to identify community needs, design contextually relevant and feasible solutions, and manage relationships for sustainable results that outlive the typical three- to seven-year grant-funded project lifecycle.
Resonance has driven PSE implemented cross-sector partnerships since its founding in 2005. We have worked with thousands of local experts and witnessed varying degrees of success to cultivate and sustain locally led partnerships. Throughout our journey we have documented key learnings, promising practices, and tips for successful locally led cross-sector collaboration.
Catalyzing and facilitating local leadership is not formulaic. Foundations, corporations, and other donors can use a range of approaches that to shift power into the hands of local stakeholders. This is most critical when setting agendas and making critical decisions.
Resonance has identified five key takeaways on the role local PSE can drive meaningful solutions:
Step one in driving locally led PSE is to engage a dynamic Partnership Specialist who brings local networks, contextual knowledge, and experience building cross-sector partnerships to spearhead efforts on the ground on a day-to-day basis.
Where cross-sector partnerships are more nascent and a local partnership specialist is not easily identified, organizations should consider cultivating someone with networking capacity as well as depth across an array of partnership soft skills at the local level to fill this role. With training and exposure to the LABS methodology (see Figure 1 below), a local hire with experience in relationship-building, problem-solving, negotiation, and broad familiarity with the private sector or market-driven solutions, can become a critical facilitator.
Resonance uses local Partnership Specialists to advise on which private sector companies, organizations, and stakeholders we should talk to, open doors for initial meetings, ensure that activities are culturally and contextually relevant and appropriate, and serve as our eyes and ears on the ground.
An effective Partnership Specialist is well equipped to advise on key market dynamics and constraints, identify capacity support needs among local partners, make introductions, and “translate” between partners. A program built with local PSE support can be easily handed off to capable local partners for ongoing sustainability.
To ensure long-term sustainability, partnership activities should be housed within local institutions like universities, government initiatives, and NGOs. These actors should be active participants in the early design process. A transition plan should be included in the initial partnership design with a focus on capacitating local partners to assume ownership and management over time without the need for external support.
For example, as a sub-implementer tasked with building cross-sector partnerships to combat illegal fishing and advance sustainable fisheries management on Fish Right in the Philippines, Resonance built a consortium of local partners to implement 12 strategic partnerships. Workstreams were led through various local NGOs, universities, government platforms, innovation and business incubators, and other organizations.
Resonance’s role centered on facilitating introductions between public and private sector organizations that had not worked closely together previously. These organizations discovered they could reduce gaps in resources or capacities by collaborating, and financing providers could identify value and mitigate risks to expand offerings for small-scale fishers’ groups.
Figure 2 below highlights one such partnership driven by local actors through Fish Right.
While some local NGO partners may have experience collaborating with the private sector, this is an entirely new to others. It can be daunting. Many local NGOs worry they will be perceived as asking for “hand-outs” from companies. It’s important to include training and mentorship support for local partners who are new to PSE.
For example, through our work on the Youth Advance project, which focused on improving livelihoods for vulnerable youth in Liberia, Resonance led an ongoing series of PSE trainings and mentorship support for Youth Serving Local Organizations (YSLOs) consisting of NGOs who support youth empowerment and employment.
Throughout our three years on the project, our approach intentionally shifted from Resonance-led to locally led partnership development and management. We equipped YSLOs with the skills to identify, approach, and engage local companies, design partnership concepts, execute MOUs and manage partnership activities on an ongoing basis. Resonance helped formalize more than ten MOUs between local Youth Advance partners and private sector companies.
Figure 3 below highlights the most commonly requested support needs from the dozens of YSLO representatives that Resonance has trained through Youth Advance and other projects to date.
A common mistake when working with local organizations on PSE is to approach partnerships in a vacuum or as one-off initiatives (e.g., partner with any company who will talk to you!).
For sustainability and impact, it’s important that partnerships are market relevant and strategically grounded. Working within the local innovation ecosystem to conduct an economic analysis and deferring to their understanding of the local context to best capitalize on industry trends is key to success.
For example, through the Youth Advance project in Liberia, Resonance relied heavily on our local specialist and market data to advise on which industries were ripe for workforce development. Rather than cast a wide net, we identified industries such as hospitality and clean energy that demonstrated high potential for growth and job creation in Liberia.
Similarly, in the Philippines, Resonance and its local partners seized on growing interest in online B2B platforms, spurred by COVID-19 related supply chain challenges, to pilot an online marketplace for responsibly sourced domestic seafood, as illustrated in Figure 4, below.
As described, local expertise and intentional off-ramp planning are essential to locally led PSE. Up front, extensive communication is important to ensure that Resonance understands the local context, dynamics, players, and opportunities to provide tailored guidance and tools; that the local Partnership Specialist and/or local consortium partners understand the project objectives and customize the methodology for delivering cross-sector partnerships in the unique context; and that we inform and maintain alignment with the client.
Over the course of implementation, strong skills and processes for adaptive management are needed to mitigate challenges and seize emerging opportunities. Despite the impacts of COVID-19 in the Philippines, our local Fish Right partnerships team was able to maintain relationships with current and potential partners, provide ongoing site-level monitoring and coordination, pivot in response to challenges, and deliver the capacity building and smooth handovers needed for post-project sustainability.
Collective attention to current and emerging complex and even wicked social, environmental, and development problems, articulated in several recent global signatory commitments, is the recognition that individual governments, organizations, and stakeholders cannot tackle these challenges alone. Leaders at all levels have stated the kind of urgent, transformative, breakpoint change necessary for problem solving will require intentional and meaningful cross-sector partnerships. And that includes an emphasis on access, standing, and influence of local organizations and stakeholders across the entirety of an initiative and activities.