Community groups and NGOs can help the private sector understand the needs of the unemployed youth, identify the target groups with whom to work and assist in ensuring accountability and transparency of those initiatives. Governments can partner on issues like policy frameworks, regulatory matters and long-term plans for the country. Government participation is also important to ensure that initiatives support and benefit from, or at the very least do not interfere with, public sector programs and initiatives. An example of such an alliance is the International Youth Foundation’s Education and Employment Alliance. It improved and expanded education and employment opportunities for disadvantaged and unemployed youth in Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa. In partnership with companies like Samsung, Starbucks, and Nokia, the 320 multi-sectoral partnerships, and 43 pilot projects all over the world have benefitted over a million young people. The Reality of Cooperation Africa is an excellent example of how the traditional donor-funded projects and private sector CSR-activities were not able to create long term impact in improving the basis of sustainable societies and economies. Dambisa Moyo’s book Dead Aid has brought enough examples of failed attempts to create democracy and economic growth with aid money alone. The time has come, albeit overdue, to launch a more aggressive agenda of finding ways in which the private sector can play a greater role in Africa’s development. The reality is that, in some form or the other, African civil society, private sector, communities and the African governments have always worked together. What is now changing is an awareness of this cooperation by international development agencies and attempts to ‘scale it up’ and make cooperation across sectors a first option as opposed to an accidental and idiosyncratic one.
The window of opportunity right now for Africans is through the global demand for their natural resources. Using these resources to the best social and economic advantage becomes the challenge: how to ensure the resources truly benefit the ordinary Africans? For that reason, African governments, non-profit sector and communities need to work closely with the private sector and engage with them. How do the alliances work? The most important element of a successful alliance is starting with measurable expected outputs. While private sector has been using several criteria in deciding whether the investment of time and resources is necessary, public sector can benefit from this practice too. For the private sector, it is a standard procedure to demonstrate measurable returns on expenditures such as investments in equipment, training, research and development. Extending this discipline to a company’s CSR-initiatives is a crucial condition for success with any CSR investment and particularly so with public private partnerships. Focusing on expected returns that align with a company’s needs also tend to align with a company’s technical competencies and resources leading to alliances that “make sense.” Defining, quantifying and articulating expected returns on CSR-initiatives move these investments from the realm of idiosyncratic whim which
lower cost for inputs or recruitment of workers to name but a few. We recommend the public sector to copy the private sector’s practice, where the expected return on cooperation with private sector would be demonstrated in a quantifiable increase in some public good that is normally of concern to the development agency. Why do we talk about measurable outputs? Measuring quantifiable returns and their impact on the “seriousness” of the partnership is also important for the communities and NGOs involved in this process as it elevates their role and importance from being passive and patronized to being participants who bring real, quantifiable value. This is the time for Africa and its friends, to recognize the role of the private sector in development, work on bold new initiatives as demonstrated by organisations like IYF. Or, in Dambisa Moyo’s words “Africans want to be entrepreneurs and not aid recipients”. For companies interested in developing alliances, USAID and other development agencies outside of Canada have extensive expertise and partnership capabilities and programs that are available to all companies including those based in Canada. A good place to start is the USAID Office of Innovation and Development Alliances. http://idea.usaid.gov Carlo Dade is a senior fellow at the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa and negotiated and funded public-private partnerships in Haiti and the Dominican Republic with the U.S. government aid agency the InterAmerican Foundation. Savera Hayat is an international development expert, with vast experience working on education and employment programs, using the alliance building model while working for USAID in Pakistan.
characterises most charity spending. This sends an important signal to the corporate bureaucracy and to the development agencies, non-governmental organizations and community groups that are potential partners. The expected return on investment can be either increased profitability, reduction in operational risk,
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