Knowledge Resource Group

Overview

The roles and responsibilities of business, civil society and government have changed dramatically since the World Bank charter was drafted, and perhaps most dramatically in the past ten years. With the advent of globalisation, the reduction in cost of telecommunications, expansion of market economies throughout the world, and the endurance of democracy, the roles of the three sectors have become increasingly interdependent. We have moved from a world where the state had sole responsibility for the public good and business maximised profits independent of the interests of society at large, to a world where success depends on the close synergy of interests among business, civil society and government.

The private sector is the engine in wealth creation. It has also expanded widely into sectors previously considered the domain of the public sector, e.g. from power and communications, to education, health and safety. Today most companies accept that their long-term investment goals can only be achieved within stable social and financial environments; thus, they are supporting a range of development activities. While not their core business, the success of these activities is essential to the success of their business.

Civil society's role and influence is expanding. In the marketplace, the consumer has become "king". In the social arena, civil society has a growing influence on the behavior and governance of state, business and individuals. Increasingly, civil society plays a key role in assessing the business community's contribution to the development arena, rewarding community friendly behaviour and criticising the opposite.

The public sector is having to reinvent itself. It is pulling out from the production of goods and the provision of services, and taking a more strategic approach to its role in society. Government's role is increasingly to foster the trust that creates social capital and mobilizes social forces and energy from all stakeholders.

The role of development organisations is changing to adapt to these new realities. To achieve poverty reduction, development institutions' ability to affect the volume of private investment—both domestic and foreign—matters as much, if not more than how much money is lent to countries. In 1997, official development assistance from industrialised country governments totaled $37.3b; private sector flows to the developing world exceeded $256b (a sixfold rise from 1990). In this context, partnerships with the private sector are an important strategy for poverty reduction, influencing the totality of a company's impact on society.

The Genesis of Business Partners for Development (BPD)

The Business Partners for Development (BPD) initiative was designed to study, support and promote strategic examples of partnerships involving business, government and civil society working together, with the World Bank Group as an equal partner, for the development of communities around the world. Partners have come together to focus on aspirational standards of behaviour, as opposed to designing codes of conduct. The core hypotheses were the following:

Business partnerships for development provide win-win benefits to all three parties;
Partnerships can be much more widely used throughout the world; and
Partnerships can be scaled up to national and regional levels.

BPD Structure

The World Bank convened a range of global firms and civil society organisations, willing to share expertise and experience, devote resources, and work alongside governments and local community development organisations, to test these hypotheses. Partners decided to spend three years working intensively with up to 30 "focus projects" (i.e. pilots) throughout the world and grouped into four "clusters". The first two clusters were formed along industry lines, since a critical mass of companies in these sectors had been working with the Bank and were interested in broadening and deepening their engagement in social development. The last two were theme-based groupings formed by initial key players who identified areas that would benefit from the tri-sector partnership approach. Each cluster designed its own specific objective and vision for the partnership:

1. Natural Resources (oil, gas and mining companies): to develop guidelines/systems/structures for dealing with community issues and mitigating risk by optimizing development impact on host communities through tri-sector partnerships. Co-convenors: BP, CARE International and the WBG.

2. Water & Sanitation: to identify specific lessons learned about partnerships from existing projects which are providing responsive and affordable water services to urban poor and to demonstrate that these can be replicated and scaled-up to national and regional levels. Co-convenors: Générale des Eaux (Vivendi), WaterAid and the WBG.

3. Global Partnership for Youth Development: to identify and share what works in building successful partnerships for youth, the next generation of labourers and consumers. Then to work through existing national and global infrastructures to mobilize significant new resources in order to strengthen and scale-up best practices in youth development. Co-convenors: Kellogg's, the International Youth Foundation and the WBG.

4. Global Road Safety Partnership: to reduce deaths, injuries, disabilities and associated social costs of road traffic crashes through collaboration and coordination of road safety activities. Co-convenors: the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and the WBG.

To connect and collect lessons learned on tri-sector partnerships from all clusters, there was a Knowledge Resource Group (KRG). The KRG was co-convened by the Prince of Wales Business Leaders Forum, CIVICUS and the World Bank Group. It was not a fixed group, but an association of individuals and organisations drawn from networks involved in tri-sector partnerships around the world. KRG used the clusters' experience to design tools and research intended for BPD partners and others from the private sector and civil society who wish to implement partnerships.

BPD Phases and Activities

The three-year timeframe for BPD was broken down into three non-sequential phases:

Phase One: getting the elements in place for a work plan to be initiated (participants, projects, identification of priority partnership challenges and of BPD activity needs, establishment of a secretariat);

Phase Two: implementing the work plan, centered on focus projects; to learn by doing, i.e. demonstrating the impact by focusing on a set of pilot projects. At the core of partnership formation is the principle of social capital and building trust by working together. By developing specific projects, participants from the three sectors (business sector, civil society, and state) acquired hands-on knowledge on how to build trust by working together strategically over a long-term period, for their own benefit and for that of the communities;

Phase Three: producing solid evidence of the positive impact of tri-sector partnerships - both the business benefits and the social / development benefits; and spreading aggregate knowledge about effective partnerships and their potential contribution to development, through workshops, conferences, publications, knowledge banks and this website.