PPPs and Sustainability

Big thanks to Wayan Vota and the folks who support the Technology Salon series for this morning’s event focusing on private sector partnerships. Rob Schneider, Senior Alliance Advisor, Office of Development Partners at USAID offered some of the background on the GDA strategy toward PPPs and his own take on (sometimes difficult) questions on how implementers and donors alike can approach these opportunities.

Flickr User @jimmyroq

At IREX, we’re always trying to figure out better ways to purposefully connect people with the technology they need, so we have an interest in building successful partnerships with both multinationals and also local companies (for example, we recently reached a deal with MTS, a mobile provider in Ukraine to provide free 3G broadband connections for up to a year to public libraries in which wired infrastructure does not exist (read about it here).

But where I think this conversation get’s really interesting is when we talk not just about broad development strategy of negotiating the partnerships, but how these partnerships can function as an ongoing part of program implementation strategy. Implementers need to think seriously not just about how to strike a deal with their business peers, but about what type of partnerships make sense for their particular program goals. It’s a different way of thinking about the partnerships because the focus is less on just getting the capital or being able stick brand X’s logo on the website. It’s about figuring out why these relationships make sense for ongoing project sustainability.

To circle back to the MTS agreement I mentioned earlier–this is a relationship that makes a lot of sense for all sides–not just for increased market share and burnished CSR credentials in a one-off deal, but because libraries will increasingly allow service providers access to new markets and connect companies with the important kinds of information they need to better serve existing and potential customers.