Thanks Walter. I find that people put a lot of faith in partnerships (including me). But there does seem to be a lack of documented evidence. I know the Harvard Kennedy School's CSR Initiative has been looking at this (and we have been involved in some of those, as has Darian). I would love to see more.
Time for our final question:
Q4: What key influencing opportunities (e.g. events, supportive organisations, influential individuals) can you recommend for advocacy on the inclusion of targets such as these in the post-2015 framework?
Absolutely - context is key, and they need to build on and support existing mechanisms.
Walter, good comment. From Global Development experience, there are rapidly emerging new kinds of actors: catalysts (such as TPI, or Global Development and many more at regional and local levels etc.) and conveners (e.g. WEF, CGI, WISH, or other platforms at the global, regional and local levels) - they play an essential role to act as an ongong "meeting point", "radar" and provide a "compass" towards common objectives to develop successful collaborations between different stakeholders for lasting results.
Leadership from within developing countries will be important here - many as yet haven't had a chance to fully grasp the growing conversation about the role of business, I think those that do could speak out - we find that Tanzania, Nigeria and a number of other countries really understand the value of layering in business to their national plans in nutrition and agriculture for example...
Proliferation of platforms is a subject that's raised in the discussion paper. Strong government leadership is required to cut through some of the complexity.
I would like to propose our event in Colombia as well as to link with our work with the UN on Global Corporate Volunteering...which looks at capacity building (not only financial resources). We are working with the UN Office of Partnership as well as several individuals representing a wide range of businesses from around the world.
Thanks Jonathan - do you or anyone else know of other countries that are likely to be supportive of this kind of agenda....?
I think looking to donor governments who are fully behind SUN is a good starting point - the Dutch and Germans are very good on promoting partnerships
Luc - can you tell us more about the event in Columbia? Thanks!
That brings us to the end of this live session. We will leave the discussion open, so please do continue to post your comments. Thanks to our panel, and to all those who participated!
If you'd like to learn more, be sure to read Mike's blog here.
First, I think we need to better inscentivize how to build bridges between public and private - including in our post-2015 discussion.
For example, looking at business, in 2025 it is estimated that there will be more than 45% of the Fortune Global 500 companies based in emerging economies (up from 5% in 1990) - estimated over USD 130 Trillion in revenues by large companiens. We need these companies' leaders at the table now, with other leaders from NGOs and governments. It seems we have more or less the same actors at the table.
Second, we need to raise awareness about challenges we want to solve. Global Development is focused on working with new champions in business and other emerging actors, and we have seen that most of them know nothing or very little about Post-2015 discussions.
Thanks Zahid and everyone who took part - really interesting!
Mike
We are preparing an event for the week of Nov 24th that would put forward a discussion but also an action plan on how to connect the Global with the Local. How do we complement existing platforms? What would be indicators and agreed basic data that we would all collect!? What are the existing financial infrastructures that would make this 'action plan' sustainable!?
The focus is "From individual action to hyper-collective impacts" in the post-2015 agenda!
indeed! large multinationals have enough resources to attend coordination activities and do engage already in complex PPP. Most companies I work with have several technical experts who could be involved in all the country technical discussions, if the country manager support this approach at specific level. In some cases I am sure they would prefer a more general commitment
Global Development (GD) explored with FSG cross-sector partnerships in the published Private Enterprise for Public Health Opportunities for Business to improve Women's and Children's Health.
It provides a roadmap how to partner and what kind of enabling environment is needed to accelerate MDG 4,5 and 6stakeholder partnerships. It was developed to catalyze such partnerships throught the United Nation Secretary General's Innovation Working Group, in support of Every Woman Every Child.
We focused on "transformational partnerships" - there are all complex cross-sector partnerships which reached scale, are sustainable and have positive social and economic impact. Examples include Intel in India on health education, Safaricom in Kenya, TV Globo in Brazil on social and health messaging, Novartis's Arogya Parivar in India to access essential medicines. These kinds of cross-partnerships need to be inscentivized to reach the scale and make lasting impact.
Yes. They do not have badwidth, and are not aware of opportunities. Platforms, like Business Fights Poverty, are very helpul resource to help them engage in new ways. Problem is they do not speak in one voice, they are too fragmented.
Mike's suggestion to link them closley to business associations (of larger companiens) is a very good approach - but there needs to be a "catalyst" to do that.There are some good examples going ito this direction. Ashoka does part of this work for social enterprieses.
Hi all,
Thanks for this discussion, I fully support your proposals.
I believe we should be even more ambitious. We should bring to bear more forcefully the models and experiences that have been put in place in the MDG efforts on health. Much was accomplished through the establishment of the Global Fund - its global and country governance mechanisms and delivery models, in particular partnerships through Co-invements and other PS contributions. These experiences lead to exploring very concrete cross sector partnerships with Agriculture, Food Security and Nutrition. CCMs have been the de facto multi-stakeholder country platforms that have produced many virtuous and innovative new commitments.
It was also the case that the PS discussions in the lead up to Busan and the Declaration were covering a lot of these experiences and models.
I am worried however that we - collectively - are not paying sufficient attention to these experiences. Participating recently in the Grow Africa events in Abuja, I was struck by the overall lack of clarity in the concepts of public private partnerships, and very little about cross sector.
We should therefore be intentional in calling for the systematic use of PPPs and Cross-Sectpr Ps for achieving all goals. We need a Partnership Pact for the Planet.
Yes, Luc, there are several examples in education, agriculture, global health, nutrition, environment etc.. Each sector can learn from the other.
What we observe at GD is that there are growing opportunities and needs to link private and public financing infrastructures.
A good example how financial services industry can help increase access to finance for the poor and SMEs, creating jobs and social and economic development. For example Citi and Calvert Foundation are investing around USD 20 million in microfinance institutions, which then invest in women-focused enterprises.
Or, in global health, a new public health thinking on Global Investment Framework for Women's and Children's Health demonstrates how investment in women's and children's health will secure high health, social, and economic returns. Increasing health expenditure by just $5 per person per year up to 2035 in 74 high-burden countries could yield up to 9x that value in economic and social benefits. This includes greater GDP growth through improved productivity, and prevention of the needless deaths. These gains could be achieved by an additional investment of $30 billion per year, equivalent to a 2% increase above current spending.