Document(s) 8 of 15

This chapter summarizes what we have learned about partnerships between national and international organizations involved in organizational capacity development. ‘Partnership’ is a very popular term in the international development community nowadays. However, many different types of relationships pass for what is called partnership. Many capacity development efforts are supply-driven, and the so-called partners may not share common goals, strategies, values, or expectations. What is clear, however, is that the basis of many relationships is shifting from a donor-driven, supply model, to more collaborative, mutually beneficial partnership models. Experiences from the ECD Project allow us to describe some of the types of relationships that national and international organizations establish for their capacity development work, and we identify some key issues that need to be addressed when working closely with other organizations. We present a number of elements that positively influenced our relationships with others in organizational capacity development.

Moving Beyond Donor–Recipient Relationships

All of the organizations participating in the ECD Project are facing an expanding array of demands and challenges. They no longer have simple and stable goals and strategies for serving their clients. All of the organizations are becoming multi-faceted, all are working in increasingly complex national and international settings, and all are linking with more and more external groups.

When two or more organizations work together, the need for interaction, mutual understanding, and common purpose creates challenges. The needs and priorities of the individual organizations may be forgotten or ignored in the excitement and complication of addressing a

“Most donor organizations do not come at a project from an organizational development perspective—they tend to focus on outputs or a specific issue. By taking evaluation out of the project and into the organization, dialog about change can take place between project partners.”

Fred Carden

common challenge. In such cases, the organization may work towards the short-term agenda of the partnership and, at the end, the partners may need to rethink who they are and what they should be doing.

Despite the difficulties of working together, organizations increasingly seek to build their capacities through collaboration. The organizations that participated in the ECD Project all lack the resources or abilities to achieve their objectives on their own, and they recognize the importance of collaborating with others that have complementary resources and management capacities.

The ECD Project brought together a number of national and international research and development organizations and evaluated how they have been working together to strengthen their capacities. Through our involvement, we have become

aware of some of the challenges of partnering for capacity development. For example, the goals, strategies, or values of the organizations working together seldom coincide. The nature and purpose of partnerships are seldom clearly defined. The roles of the different organizations involved are seldom negotiated and clarified. Capacity development efforts are often supply-driven, reflecting the views and priorities of external agencies rather than those of the organization whose capacity is supposedly being developed. Finally, capacity development efforts are often focused on specific, individual projects rather than strengthening the organization’s capacity to achieve its goals.

The evaluations highlight the need to create relationships that develop the organization as a whole. Thus, whether we are talking about discrete training events, technical support, mentoring, or other forms of capacity development, the activity should support the creation of a stronger organization, not just build the capacity of the individuals or groups involved. Below we present an analysis of the relationships that can exist between two organizations, we look at their strengths and weaknesses, and we describe some key elements that make for more positive and successful partnerships in organizational capacity development.

Characterizing Partnerships and Implications for Capacity Development

Partnerships are negotiated relationships between two or more entities that have voluntarily entered into a legal or moral contract. All of the evaluation studies involved partnerships between national and international research and development organizations. In some cases, regional organizations or networks were also involved. The relationship varied depending on their purpose, nature, and intensity. We use examples from our evaluation studies to elucidate the varying characteristics that partnerships can have over time, as needs and expectations change.

Relationships involving international donors have started to change fundamentally, although this change is by no means complete and is not shared among all agencies. The shift being made is from a donor–recipient relationship to a partnership with mutual benefits. In the donor–recipient relationship, the donor holds the power and the authority over what is done and how it is done. In this

“We should think about how a project is enhancing both organizations and not consider a project as an independent entity.”

Fred Carden

scenario, the recipient is a relatively passive receiver of support. The underlying concept is one of transfer (of resources, knowledge, technology, or ideas) from the one who possesses or controls the resources to a recipient who will thereby benefit or improve in some way.

More and more frequently, it is recognized that both parties to a relationship have something to offer and something to gain. The increasing complexity of our operating environment suggests that all organizations can gain from working with others who have complementary resources and management capacities. The shift is towards a partnership model in which it is recognized that there is a need for dialog, where partners seek mutual benefits, and where the capacities of different organizations can be joined or shared to achieve common objectives.

A key challenge is how to develop viable and productive partnerships. In a donor–recipient relationship, the donor has greater power and transfers resources, knowledge, and technologies to the recipient, who has relatively little power and generally poor access to these resources. In capacity development, there is a strong case for greater equality in the relationship. However, it should be noted that equality is not equivalent to sameness. Each party brings different issues and strengths to the partnership and each party should take something different away from it, in support of their organization’s mission. What this highlights, however, is the need for mutual respect as well as clarity in the nature and purpose of the relationship.

Whatever the nature, a partnership strives to respect the demands, needs, and expectations of all the parties involved. Partnership is characterized by common goals, mutual respect, collegiality, shared values, and agreed on principles for reaching decisions and for sharing the costs and benefits of the partnership. A partnership may grow out of another type of relationship if two or more organizations identify a common cause in the course of working together. These partnerships may be short-, medium-, or long-term. How long they last depends on the nature and complexity of the issues being addressed and on external factors such as funding availability.

Below we present broad types of partnerships that emerged from the organizations participating in the ECD Project. These are ‘pure’ or ‘ideal’ types, and specific partnerships may not fit precisely within one category. Many of the cases could be described in terms of different types of partnership at different stages. As a set, they provide a mechanism for negotiating the purpose of a partnership and for clarifying the nature of the primary relationships.

Focusing on specific capacity needs

In one case the primary objective of the partnership was capacity development. RDRS worked with IIRR because it wanted to use the training courses developed by IIRR to

build the capacity of its staff. The relationship was built over several years and centered on the course schedule outlined by IIRR. The parties usually did not define the training agenda together, but worked from a set of menu possibilities. Assessment of performance was made in terms of the individual courses and the abilities imparted to the RDRS staff. This approach to capacity development closely resembles the traditional technical transfer model.

RDRS managers and staff had thought that training was the main element of capacity development. In conducting the evaluation, they realized that, while training was important, there were many other elements of capacity development, and these were not being addressed. Training was necessary but not sufficient. They then began to look at the partnership and how it could contribute to other capacity development needs.

A limitation of this type of relationship is that the ‘clients’ or beneficiaries have to conform to the priorities and service delivery format of the ‘provider’. Providers (either donors or training institutions) often try to meet the requirements of different stakeholders by offering a generic program that addresses a wide range of needs. In this case, clients are expected to select from a menu of options made available by the provider. Where there is a clear training need and an expertise that can provide that service, the partnership is especially beneficial.

While service providers can offer useful training and technical assistance that contributes to the development of an organization’s capacity, their contribution tends to be limited. In that sense, it is often a short-term relationship. But in terms of addressing complex issues, it cannot move the organization forward in ways that a more comprehensive partnership could. The other implication is that unless the purpose and intent of the relationship is negotiated and clarified from the start, unrealistic expectations and dissonance can develop, which can ultimately harm the capacity development effort.

Partners with a common mission

Ghana’s Plant Genetic Center and IPGRI have a common cause centered around the Global Plan of Action for the Conservation and Sustainable Utilization of Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (GPA). Both organizations are committed to fulfilling the agreement, which requires coordinated action at the local and international level. The conservation and use of plant genetic resources has multiple dimensions and capacity development emerged as a major priority in the course of the study. The critical elements of a mission-based partnership would seem to be that the parties have a common and largely overlapping mission, both have a role to

play or an interest in the issue, both see merit in working together, and both see the potential to learn from the partnership.

The partnership between IPGRI and the Plant Genetic Center has lasted for 20 years, and they have been working with GRENEWECA since 1998. All three organizations are motivated to collaborate because they share a common mission. IPGRI and GRENEWECA were created to promote conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources at the global and regional level. However, neither of them actually control any germplasm. Therefore, to accomplish their own missions, they must work with, and strengthen, national organizations like the Plant Genetic Center. Similarly, the Plant Genetic Center benefits from working with IPGRI and GRENEWECA through access to resources (specialized equipment, information, etc.) and through building up its technical and managerial capacities.

Focusing on a common problem

Many organizations do not have common missions, but have overlapping interests in a problem area. In the case of Viet Nam, there was a confluence of interests; the Mekong Delta Farming Systems R&D Institute has a mandate to enhance sustainable agriculture and rural development to embrace the challenges of globalization in a time of major governmental reform. The IDRC-CBNRM program has a mandate to foster research and research capacity in the local management of natural resources. Amidst transitions in Viet Nam’s economy, there is a need to conduct research on natural resource management and also to develop the Institute’s managerial capacities.

A similar issue affected Cuba. The Ministry of Agriculture and IIP were eager to strengthen their managerial capacities to cope with changes in the economy. ISNAR’s New Paradigm Project was working on similar issues on a regional scale. IIP saw that it could benefit from the knowledge and expertise available in the New Paradigm Project and the Project saw that its members could all learn and benefit from the experiences in Cuba. One of the more important elements of the relationship was the mutual commitment to a philosophy of collaboration that respects and recognizes the autonomy, perspectives, and knowledge of local professionals. In both Cuba and Viet Nam, the issues and the capacity development efforts are central to the partner-ship, which may last over the medium or the long term.

Networking

In a network relationship, many different parties are involved in capacity development in a nonhierarchical fashion. Each party links to others in the network because

they feel the exchange of information, experiences, or other resources are mutually beneficial. Network members may have common missions or address common problems. Networks involve a complex web of relationships involving many individu-

als and organizations. In our studies, we realized that our organizations are more and more extensively networked with others with similar interests and complementary resources.

Some networks have capacity development as their goals. Governments in West and Central Africa responded to the need to conserve germplasm by creating GRENEWECA, because the issue was of regional, as well as national, importance. It was recognized that joint efforts were essential to address the requirements of germplasm conservation. The network became an important addition to the partner-ship between the Plant Genetic Center and IPGRI, and capacity development is an important goal of the network. In 2002, ISNAR’s New Paradigm Project evolved into a regional network aimed at strengthening capacities in research and development organizations to address emerging development issues in Latin America.

Elements of Successful Partnerships in Capacity Development

The evaluation studies have helped identify a number of elements that seem to characterize the more successful partnerships for capacity development, whatever the partnership type. These are discussed below and summarized in Figure 8 and Table 3. The success of partnerships depends largely on the extent to which ownership, power, and commitment are shared. Ethics and principles play an important role in shaping a partnership, because they enhance the degree to which that ownership, power, and commitment are respected and shared.

Link to the organizations’ missions, strategies, and values

One overarching factor in developing a successful partnership is to link the capacity development effort to the missions, strategies, and values of the organizations involved. One of the reasons for looking at organizational capacity development in the ECD Project was that organizations are often encouraged to take on projects because they are strong and are likely to implement the project well. However, if the project is not well-linked to the organization’s mission, both the project and the organization may suffer.

In our studies, we found that partnerships were strongest and most productive when the various parties were all committed to the capacity development effort and felt joint ownership of it. If a relationship is to be successful, both the international and national organizations’ needs must be addressed. Collaboration takes place when

Figure 8. Elements of successful partnerships for capacity development

the needs converge. Ownership is promoted when activities contribute to the missions and strategies of the organizations involved. The partners valued working together because they were working towards similar long-term goals in similar ways. Of course, a link to the organization’s mission and strategy is not enough. True feelings of ownership and commitment also require direct involvement in the design and execution of capacity development activities.

Ghana’s Plant Genetic Center and IPGRI have complementary objectives because they both seek to implement the GPA. Neither party could achieve this goal alone because it requires both local and international action.

In the case of Bangladesh, RDRS sought IIRR’s services because the two organizations shared a similar mission—promoting rural empowerment and development.

Table 3. Elements of Successful Partnerships for Capacity Development

However, when they examined their relationship at a deeper level in the evaluation study, they found that their partnership was not, in fact, contributing to the mission of both organizations. IIRR was providing valuable technical skills to RDRS, but the use of these skills was outside the scope of the partnership. The evaluation helped IIRR reexamine the assumptions on which its training strategy was based. IIRR felt that the development of RDRS’s organizational capacity could have been addressed more fully had the partnership considered the learning needs of both organizations from the beginning. The study also stimulated RDRS and IIRR to negotiate the goals and terms of their relationship to contribute more directly to their missions.

Clear purpose and intent

In the course of assessing their capacity development efforts, partners came to realize the importance of clarifying the purpose and intent of the relationship between the national and international organizations. The organizations involved may have different assumptions about the purpose and intent of the relationship.

Dissonance between each organization’s understanding of the capacity development effort can lead to unrealistic expectations or dissatisfaction later on.

“Technical organizations may not have a comparative advantage in facilitating the processes that we now understand are essential for capacity development. We are now considering what role we should play in facilitating capacity development processes.”

Jamie Watts

To come back to Bangladesh, RDRS expected—perhaps unrealistically—that the IIRR training would automatically lead to a strengthening of the organization. Following the evaluation, RDRS realized that it needed a more comprehensive approach to support its organizational capacity.

Organizational capacity development is often a by-product of projects or relationships that have other goals. For example, in Viet Nam, IDRC (through its CBNRM program) has supported the Mekong Delta Farming Systems R&D Institute with collaborative research projects on the assumption that strengthening individual capacities to conduct research will lead to a stronger research organization. As a consequence, IDRC’s dominant mode of funding has been centered on research projects and training related to projects, and not on organizational capacity development per se. The IDRC-CBNRM program has learned through this study and other experiences that even when strengthening organizational capacities is not an explicit objective, attention should be paid to the context in which the funded project operates and not just to the project and the individuals carrying out the work.

Clear division of roles and responsibilities

International organizations may encourage and contribute to capacity development in a national organization by providing motivation, ideas, resources, or technical expertise, but they cannot effectively lead the process. Leadership must come from within an organization that wishes to develop its own capacity.

The ability to take the lead in capacity development is linked to the balance or imbalance of power in relationships between organizations. Power refers to the ability to act freely, to control resources, and to have authority. When capacity development

efforts involve different parties, power needs to be shared. Particularly in the case of international partnerships, it is important to recognize imbalances in power relationships, which are usually due to differential control over resources, especially financial resources.

Each donor has its own set of accountability requirements, for example, control over the funds it contributes to a program or control over the program’s focus. National partners also have their own accountability requirements. The issue is not to remove power imbalances but to recognize, in as open and direct a manner as possible, and negotiate mutually acceptable principles and procedures for working together. This requires transparency from both parties.

In conducting the evaluation in Viet Nam, it became clear to IDRC-CBNRM that some changes in IDRC’s program priorities were not viewed positively by all the Vietnamese partners. The shift to community-based research had not been discussed in the context of its implications for the changing partnership base of the networks at the Mekong Delta Farming Systems R&D Institute.

External organizations can play positive roles and influence capacity development in national organizations. A national organization may often gain legitimacy more readily for local initiatives—including capacity development efforts—if these are endorsed by international agencies. For example, although the Government of Ghana has ratified several international conventions and agreements relating to the conservation and use of plant genetic resources, it has not yet put relevant national policies into place. Ghana’s Plant Genetic Center’s advocacy efforts around these issues have gained greater legitimacy through its involvement with, and support from, IPGRI.

However, the roles of international organizations in capacity development efforts should not be over-emphasized. The involvement and endorsement of national agencies are often crucial. In addition to providing resources and technical expertise, they can also provide political legitimacy. In the cases of the Root Crops Center in the Philippines, the Mekong Delta Farming Systems R&D Institute in Viet Nam, and FARENA in Nicaragua, support of the parent universities was essential for the success of their capacity development efforts.

Principled negotiation and joint decision-making

The success of a partnership is largely influenced by the extent to which the parties negotiate agreements on key aspects of the relationship, including its objectives and its principles for reaching decisions and for sharing costs and benefits in an ethical fashion. By this, we mean that one party does not impose its will on the other. Experience suggests that negotiating objectives is especially important. Why work

together? What is the value added? Could the same ends be achieved more efficiently in some other way?

In Cuba, the partners engaged in a thoroughly negotiated process to determine the parameters of the capacity development efforts around agrifood chain analysis. Rather than embark on technical training right away, a first workshop brought research managers of local organizations together with the international partner to discuss the capacity development effort, and to develop principles for their work over the next two-year period. A declaration was signed, which recorded and symbolized the involvement and commitment of all parties to the capacity development process.

As we have already noted, many external organizations may be involved with a national organization in capacity development activities. Negotiations therefore may not be one-on-one, since each of the organizations involved will have different goals and needs, which may be inconsistent and evolve over time. For example, the Root Crops Center in the Philippines received support for the development of its participatory research capacity from four different external organizations. Three of the four, however, had broader capacity development goals and were involved in other aspects of the Center’s capacity development. As the number of partners and agendas multiply, so do the possibilities of confusion and conflict.

Openness to learning and change

Our evaluation studies confirm that all parties in a relationship bring valuable knowledge, experience, and ideas to the table. Similarly, all parties have something to learn from collaborating in capacity development efforts. Learning is at the heart of capacity development, and our studies show that capacity development efforts are most successful when all parties are committed to learning from experience to improve their own work. Learning should not be left to chance. It should be fostered by periodic reflection on the goals, activities, and results of the capacity development process, through systematic monitoring and evaluation.

In all our cases, the evaluation study allowed us to improve our understanding of capacity development. In most cases, it contributed to strengthening the relationship between the national and international partners. Nearly universally, capacity development efforts supported by international organizations focus on strengthening capacity in the South. However, our studies have revealed that international organizations stand to learn just as much from their partnerships.

In some cases, individuals have taken what they learn back to their organizations for use in other situations. In the Philippines, the evaluation study helped UPWARD—the capacity ‘provider’ in this case—realize that it had gained substantial

knowledge and experience in participatory research from its partnership with the Root Crops Center. The joint field-based projects in which UPWARD participated helped shape its program and research agendas and influenced how it worked with other partners to develop their capacity in participatory research.

Developing procedures for organizational learning is crucial for partners in capacity development. In the case of Viet Nam, the evaluation study enabled the international partner, IDRC, to examine its support for networks. The IDRC-CBNRM program learned from the evaluation study that its network support programs needed to address the organizational capacity development aspects of a network such as networking and facilitation skills. Some of the knowledge gained through the partnership with the Mekong Delta Farming Systems R&D Institute in Viet Nam will be applied to an IDRC project in China. In fact, if only one of the partners learns, the two will grow apart and the relationship may disintegrate.

Continuity and persistence

As we have noted on several occasions, capacity development is not a one-off activity. Capacities are built up over time and often accrue quite slowly. Internal or external demands to produce quick results sometimes interfere with longer-term needs for capacity development. Ideally, partners should agree to sustain the partnership over a period of time to build up a sense of trust and joint ownership and to obtain concrete results. However, long-term relationships do not guarantee success. In the case of Viet Nam, for example, although IDRC and the Mekong Delta Farming Systems R&D Institute had collaborated for many years, the Institute’s staff felt that a number of the dimensions of the relationship suffered when IDRC’s funding and programming focus changed to a community-based natural research management approach.

IPGRI and the Plant Genetic Center have been working together on genetic conservation for 20 years, building capacities for genetic conservation. IPGRI’s contribution to capacity development has evolved over time to respond to changing circumstances. With the signing of the GPA in 1996, new priorities were brought forward, including the importance of in situ conservation. These new priorities have affected the nature and focus of capacity development within the partnership. This shows the importance of periodic evaluation of capacity development initiatives to check objectives and strategies against changing conditions.

Flexibility

The more successful capacity development initiatives examined in the ECD Project have been flexible and have evolved in response to changing circumstances,

incorporating new information and experience as it became available. This required the international organizations that provided support to be not overly specialized and to offer a rather broad range of services.

Negotiations between partners should not end with the clarification of purpose. They must continue throughout the life of the partnership, in response to changing conditions and new challenges. Periodic evaluations can encourage partners to reflect on their relationship and make adjustments to help them face changing conditions, needs, and opportunities.

In the case of the Philippines, the Root Crops Center–UPWARD partnership was primarily built on a shared interest in researching root crops and the use of participatory research as a means to achieve their respective organizational goals and objectives. During a 12-year relationship the focus evolved from expanding the use of sweetpotato in home gardens to snack-food enterprise development. The initial research focus reflected the Center’s goal to help avert a food crisis in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake that hit the northern Philippines in 1991. The later focus (on snack-food enterprises) emerged as the Center sought to address the deteriorating economic situation of farmers in the region. Over the 12-year period, the partnership evolved through eight different phases (see Annex).

In addition to flexibility, we have learned that excessive specialization tends to limit the value of a partnership and the overall success of the capacity development effort. As change in the environments that affect our work is continuous, there is no end to the need for capacity development and for learning.

Just as partnerships evolve, they may also end. In some cases, there is nothing further the partnership can contribute and each organization needs to focus on its own activities. In other cases, the partners move in different directions and need to generate new and different partnerships to move ahead.

Take-Home Messages

A key challenge for managers is to develop viable and productive partnerships for capacity development. A number of elements characterize successful partnerships for capacity development, whatever the partnership type.

It is important to link the capacity development effort to the mission, strategy, and values of the organizations involved. This helps promote ownership of the activity among partners. Clarifying the purpose and intent of the relationship between national and international organizations is also essential. Dissonance between each organization’s understanding of the capacity development effort can lead to unrealistic expectations or dissatisfaction later on.

Despite the fact that international and local organizations play positive roles and influence capacity development in national organizations, leadership must come from within an organization that wishes to develop its own capacity.

The ability to take the lead in one’s own capacity development is linked to the balance or imbalance of power in relationships between organizations. Clear divisions of roles and responsibilities help address power imbalances.

Negotiation is essential to developing mutually acceptable principles and procedures. Transparency on the part of both parties is essential if they are to work together effectively.

Capacity development efforts are most successful where all parties are committed to learning from experience to improve their own work. Learning can be fostered by periodic reflection on the goals, activities, and results of the capacity development process through systematic monitoring and evaluation.

Flexibility is essential if partners are to respond to changing circumstances and incorporate new information and experiences that become available over time into their capacity development activities.

Relationships among organizations evolve over time and partnerships need to prepare for change and phasing out.

Guide to Further Reading

In recent years, there have been many critiques of technical cooperation and its implications for capacity development in developing nations. Over the last two years, UNDP has taken a fresh look at the fundamentals of capacity development and how external cooperation can best contribute to the development of lasting indigenous capacities. Its project “Reforming Technical Cooperation for Capacity Development” is intended to contribute to the ongoing debate on capacity development and the role of external partners. Progress reports on this project and results of extensive discussions can be found on the website http://capacity.undp.org/books/book1.htm

One of the first outputs of the UNDP project is the book Capacity for Development, edited by Fukuda-Parr, Lopes, and Malik (2002). This book discusses many of the issues dealt with in this chapter and is highly recommended for readers who would like a more in-depth treatment of the issues.

Issue 14 (July 2002) of the web-based magazine Capacity.org presents highlights of the UNDP initiative and related information on the policy and practice of capacity development in international development cooperation.

The December 2002 issue of the International Journal of Technology Management and Sustainable Development, edited by Hall, presents a collection of articles on North–South research collaboration and capacity development.

The book edited by Fisher, Ury, and Patton (1991), Getting to Yes (first published in 1981), is still the most useful single reference on principled negotiation.

Many development organizations have prepared guidelines for fostering partnerships with developing countries. The Swiss Commission for Research Partnership with Developing Countries has issued a set of guidelines that is similar to the success factors identified here. The Swiss Commission presents the following 11 principles of research partnership: decide on the objectives together, build up mutual trust, share information and develop networks, share responsibility, create transparency, monitor and evaluate the collaboration, disseminate the results, apply the results, share profits equitably, increase research capacity, and build on the achieve-ments. The principles can be found on the website www.kfpe.ch/key_activities/publications/guide- lines/guidelines_e.html.

In their book, Organizations Working Together (1993), Alter and Hage discuss a wide variety of inter-organizational arrangements—joint ventures, associations, networks—that are being used to coordinate activities beyond traditional organizational boundaries.

UNDP has recently issued a synthesis of lessons learned on partnership in a note entitled Partnership for Local Governance (2002).

The handbook Partnering to Build and Measure Organizational Capacity, edited by Johnson and Ludema (1997), presents lessons for organizational capacity development drawn from the experience of national development organizations working in partnership with the Christian Reformed World Relief Committee.

The literature review by Armstrong and Whyte, Learning Partnerships, found on the IDRC website (www.idrc.ca/evaluation/literaturereview.htm), provides a survey of the recent literature on public-sector partnerships and discusses these in the context of the management and evaluation of the work of research centers.

Document(s) 8 of 15