Knowledge Resource Group

Endearing Myths, Enduring Truths: Enabling Partnerships
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Partner’s Aims as Partnership Drivers

It is critically important to establish each partner’s individual aims and to design the partnership activities to ensure that these are sufficiently realised. If the partnership does not meet these individual aims through its activities, it will be difficult to secure the partner’s continued involvement. For example, securing the engagement of the business partner in joint activities will be easiest where these activities, in practice, assist the business in meeting its contractual obligations, in identifying marketing opportunities, or in managing risks and expectations related to specific sites and contracts.

These conditions have proved to be more explicit for the partnerships in the Natural Resources Cluster and the Water and Sanitation Cluster. Konkola Copper Mine plc’s commitment to a partnership that aims to develop and implement a local business development programme in the Zambian copper belt fulfils its contractual obligation established at the time of privatisation, thereby helping to offset social risks associated with community tensions and dislocation arising through retrenchment.

Similarly, the partnership of the Water and Sanitation Services South Africa (a subsidiary of Ondeo, formerly Suez-Lyonnaise des Eaux) with an NGO, the MvulaTrust, was formed with the common aim of improving sustainable water and sanitation services to poorer communities in Northern Province and Eastern Cape in South Africa. This common aim of the Build, Operate, Train, and Transfer (BOTT) Programme of the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry certainly frames the partnership’s joint activities. However, these activities are possible because they also enable each partner to address its specific interests. For those businesses involved in the consortium formed as a result of the partnership, this meant finding appropriate, sustainable, and cost-effective ways to comply with their contractual obligations to service poor communities and strengthen their bidding position for future contracts in South Africa and elsewhere. The joint activities also enable the Mvula Trust to enhance the quality of the intervention to ensure sustainable availability of water and sanitation services to poorer communities.

Partner’s Aims as Partnership Drivers

Endearing Myth

Successful partnerships are primarily shaped around a common or shared long-term vision or aim.

Enduring Truth

Successful partnerships are those shaped around common or shared activities that first and foremost deliver against the individual aims of each partner, particularly where these have been legitimised within the partnership.

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