Civil in Patners in change

The present phase of globalisation has witnessed increased influence of business in all spheres of our lives. There exist in India several NGOs both national and international who are engaging with businesses albeit from a variety of perspectives and entry points and also representing stakeholders differently impacted by business processes (consumers, workers, environment, community, etc.). Further, the NGOs are increasingly looking at new ways of holding corporates accountable for their social and environmental impact across the supply chain and upon the communities whilst simultaneously exploring multiple dimensions of engagement including partnerships and dialogue.

In this context, Cordaid, Netherlands in collaboration with Partners in Change is presently assessing various aspects of its partner’s engagement with the Private Sector. Partners in Change and Cordaid would also like to use such engagement for assisting its NGO partners to find markets, raise resources and generally promote sustainability of community based action. Moreover, the feedback from its southern partners would also influence Cordaid’s own strategy vis-a-visa engagement with the private sector. The First phase is over by July 2006. The second phase related to building pilot partnerships would be started from September 2006.

To build capacities of NGO partners of Cordaid in India to conceptualise and strategise their engagement with private sector.
To develop a toolkit for assisting NGOs to conceptualise and strategise their engagement.
To design one partnership project in each region between a NGO and a private enterprise

The first phase of the project has been completed where an analysis of the Cordaid partners in India and Bangladesh was done through a questionnaire based survey and follow-up interviews. The issues covered in the analysis are operational area of the NGO, their mandate, the issues they are covering and the present range of their engagement with the private sector. The analysis also focused on information about any institutionalised system of engagement with the private sector, any impact assessment done for such engagement, their governance pattern and their national and international networks.

Update: Two regional workshops were organized, the first one in Bangalore in May with 12 Cordaid partners & the second one in Jamshedpur in July with 11 Cordaid partners. The workshop aimed at conceptualizing and strategising the engagement of Cordaid partners with the private sector.