john young, inasp ([email protected]) many thanks for the … · 2020-07-13 · when i started to...
TRANSCRIPT
John Young, INASP ([email protected])
Many thanks for the opportunity to speak at this important event.
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When I started to think about what I might say today I thought I better just check up on what SDG 17 is all about. The title is quite succinct “Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development”, but as with all of them there are bewildering number of sub goals and targets: 17.1‐5 are about finance; 17.6‐8 are about technology / knowledge; 17.9 is about capacity building; 17.10‐12 are about trade; and 17.13‐19 are about “systemic issues” – pretty much everything else that needs to be in place including macro‐economic stability and policy coherence, but including 17.15 & 17.16 which are about establishing multistakeholderpartnerships which “respect each country’s policy space and leadership” and “mobilise and share knowledge, expertise, technology and financial resources”. That’s what I’m going to talk about today.
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Most of what I have learned about partnership is through personal experiences – firstly as a VSO volunteer in Sri Lanka, which was a fantastic introduction to the reality of interfering in another country’s development story. I was utterly powerless, relatively ignorant, and fantastically culturally insensitive. I learned very fast that the only way to get anything done, was to help people to do what they wanted to do and see if I could help them to do it better.
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Which was pretty much the mantra for the next organisation I worked for – what was then called Intermediate Technology Development Group, now Practical Action, in Kenya. I had a few more resources, and a bit more common sense, trying to set up sustainable village animal healthcare systems. And I soon discovered that it was the “bringing all the stakeholders together to decide what to do and how to do it” that seemed to be the most important.
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And it was pretty much the same when I ran a big DFID‐funded programme to develop, test and promote decentralised, client‐focused livestock services in Indonesia, though that time I was working within the government. That resulted in a bunch of new services being developed in remote rural areas, but nothing fundamental changed, and they were unlikely to be replicated, until the 1998 financial crisis, then the political crisis, and the sudden collapse of the highly centralised Soeharto regime, and the civil society demand for more decentalised and accountable government created the right conditions for those approaches to flourish. Which was my big lesson in how what I call the political context really determines what is possible.
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1. Access to timely and accurate information• How do partners share information?
• What type of information is provided? Where and when is it made available?
• Do all partners and relevant stakeholders have access to it?
2. Terms of engagement• Are the terms on which the partnership is to be undertaken clearly understood by all parties?
• What are the objectives, strategies and expected outcomes of the partnership?
• Are the parameters of what is subject to negotiation (and what is not) clearly defined and understood?
• Do all partners have a say in decision making, particularly to ensure that needs are met and capacities used in the most fruitful way?
• How will the partnerships be formalised?
• How do partners share responsibility and profits?
• Are partners open to scrutiny and willing to revise the terms of engagement? Is there a mechanism in place for this?
• How can other potential partners initiate engagement?
3. Legitimacy of engagement/partnership• How are partners selected?
• What process is used to ensure legitimacy and accountability of partners to their own stakeholders? (Is
• there a process to verify that partners represent the interests of those they claim to speak on behalf of?)
• What review process is in place to ensure competence of the partners?
• Is there a process in place to ensure commitment of the various partners?
4. Procedural review and evaluation mechanisms• What mechanisms exist for partners who have a grievance regarding the engagement process?
• What mechanisms are in place to monitor and evaluate the partnership and its impact?
• What processes are in place to ensure correction/improvement?
I didn’t really study what makes partnership work until I returned to the UK and started
the research and policy in development programme in ODI, which worked on at the
interface between research, policy and practice. Our aim was to promote greater use of
research‐based evidence in development policy.
Most of our work was in partnership with southern research organisations, so we did a
study of current theory and practice in development research partnerships – including
the big government programmes (like sida and DFID), independent research
organisations (like IDRC and the swiss commission for research partnerships), and
foundations (like the Wellcome Foundation). All talked about 4 aspects: transparency
and access to information, legitimacy and alignment of values, equitable terms of
engagement, and open transparent inclusive governance and management
arrangements.
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ODI Partnership Principles (2007)
1.Partners will share a vision of the value of the partnership, the intended objectives and outcomes.
2.Partners will respond to each other’s needs and the needs of their beneficiaries.
3.Partners will promote transparency by sharing information in an open and timely fashion
4.Partners will share outputs fairly; partners’ contribution will be recognized
5.The partnership will adapt to changing circumstances
6.Partners will maintain their independence
We came up with a set of 6 partnership principles for ODI:
1. Partners will share a vision of the value of the partnership, the intended objectives
and outcomes.
2. Partners will respond to each other’s needs and the needs of their beneficiaries.
3. Partners will promote transparency by sharing information in an open and timely
fashion
4. Partners will share outputs fairly; partners’ contribution will be recognized
5. The partnership will adapt to changing circumstances
6. Partners will maintain their independence
And then discovered very quickly just how hard it was to keep to them in what was
becoming an increasingly competitive, contract‐driven, and results‐based research
funding environment.
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KFPE: 11 Principles & 7 Questions for transboundary research partnerships
The best set of principles and guidance I have come across are those developed by the Swiss Academy of Sciences (KFPE)’s 11 principles for effective transboundary research partnerships first developed in 2002 and updated in 2021, and still absolutely relevant today: The principles are: 1) Set the agenda together, 2) Interact with stakeholders, 3) Clarify responsibilities, 4) Be accountable to beneficiaries, 5) Promote mutual learning, 6) Enhance capacities, 7) Share data and networks, 8) Disseminate results, 9) Pool profits and rewards, 10) Apply results, and 11) Secure outcomes. And they have also identified 7 questions you should ask yourself as you go about trying to set up partnerships. 1) Why work in partnership? 2) How to ensure cohesion? 3) What form of collaboration? 4) Which foci and priorities? 5) Who to involve? 6) Where to create relevance? and 7) When to consolidate outcomes? They have a great website which explains all of this really well: https://11principles.org.
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I joined INASP about 18 months ago – partly because they had a fantastic reputation
with their partners – both in the North and the South – for actually doing these sorts of
things really well. They were lucky. They managed to hang on to core funding from
research donors who also supported these principles, for much longer than most UK‐
based development research support organisations, so they could afford to invest the
time and money necessary to do these things.
We still have a set of values which underpin this:
• In it together: collaborating with our partners to co‐design and co‐develop projects.
• Making change last: working with partners to enable them to continue beyond the
end of every project.
• Every voice counts: actively seeking to address issues of power and equity within
our work.
• Doing things right: being fair, honest, open and accountable.
But most of our core funding has gone, and even we are finding it increasingly difficult to
put these into practice in the current development research funding environment.
So we, and by we I mean the whole development research community, know very well
how to develop equitable effective partnerships, and we have known for decades, so
why is it still an issue? Why is it still difficult? And the answer is essentially politics.
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Partly what I would call big P politics – the shifting sands of public and politicians
interest development cooperation. The pressure from the public to see tangible results
from development spending, the shift towards short term, output‐driven contracts, to
deliver research demanded by donors, rather than research driven by the need and
interests of people in the south. And what is the DFID‐FCO merger going to mean for
research partnerships? The merger of AusAID into DFAT pretty much destroyed the
Australian Development Research programme.
But it’s also partly what I would call small P politics –the interests and incentives driving northern researchers – for example the need to get peer reviewed publications so PostDocs can get a proper employment contract. You can’t blame them for that. We should all have proper jobs. But that can distract attention from longer term approaches emphasising partnerships and capacity development.
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But there are though glimmers of hope: the emphasis on equitable partnerships and
capacity building in GCRF‐funded projects, the long term research partnerships fostered
by funders like the Wellcome Trust and Sida.
What we must do is try as hard as we can in the current climate to maintain effective
equitable research partnerships, demonstrate that that’s the best way to get the
evidence to underpin sustainable development, and use that to persuade more donors
to provide research funding in ways that support, rather than undermine them.
And who knows, maybe the COVID‐19 crisis and Black Lives Matter movement might
also persuade developed country governments and researchers that strong sustainable
southern research capacity is essential for a sustainable future, and that the best way to
get there is through supporting effective equitable research partnerships.
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