How to partner with the private sector: Lessons from CARE International

LONDON — When world leaders adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, they were clear in Goal 17 — “Revitalizing the global partnership for sustainable development” — that success required civil society to partner with the private sector and governments. Before the SDGs were agreed, banking firm Barclays and British pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) had already formed a business-to-business partnership in 2013, which aimed to enable people in rural Africa to access affordable health care, to promote economic development, and to explore ways of bringing products and services to new customers. To do this, the companies realised they needed the help of an NGO. The journey taken by the Barclays GSK Partnership is explained in a report published earlier this year by independent assessor Accenture Strategy. The companies committed 3 million pounds each to the three-year partnership. It began with several experimental projects that resulted in the Live Well program in Zambia. The partners then chose NGO CARE International to help set-up and run its Live Well Social Business Ltd. Live Well recruits and trains community health entrepreneurs, who sell health care products as part of a basket of goods (half of which are GSK branded) in rural and semi-rural regions. To date, Live Well has sold more than 120,000 health care products and has trained more than 400 entrepreneurs in employment or business skills with the support of Barclays’ Ready to Work initiative. And the project has reached an average 45,000 people each month. Live Well’s former Managing Director Charles Kalonga said that as a result, “there are fewer people being treated in public health facilities for things like diarrhea, coughs and headaches. It is providing health care products that people in communities simply could not get before.” For its part, CARE International provided essential on-the-ground knowledge and capacity. In return, it received market-based help to achieve a sustainable program that delivered the charity’s pre-existing objectives of helping communities access health products and boosting livelihoods. Members of the team behind the partnership told Devex that one of the key benefits of partnering with the private sector from the NGO perspective is a wider freedom to test and fail. The partnership worked on several projects in Zambia before it designed the Live Well model, including a nurse-led franchise model and a micro health insurance model, but none were financially viable. GSK’s vice president of global health programs, Andy Wright, said that failing is something companies can do with potentially less negative consequences than an NGO. “A company like GSK is used to investing in things that are not guaranteed to succeed,” he said. “We invest billions in research and development and we have successes, but we have an awful lot of medicines that do not go all the way through the pipeline. Barclays is the same. When you’re investing, you’re lending at low-risk investments and high-risk investments. The NGO world is very much dependent on the next grant from a funder and always needing to be successful and show results.” CARE International’s head of strategic partnerships, Tom Sessions, agreed, and suggested the “flexibility in regrouping, taking stock, moving to another direction” is something the private sector can do more of than an NGO working alone. He said one of the biggest lessons CARE International took from the Live Well project was to “start small, move fast, and fail quickly” – a strategy he says rigid civil society logframes often won’t allow. Another benefit is the potential for improved sustainability. The Live Well program aims for the social enterprise it set up to become self-sufficient in the future, so that it does not require funding from private sector partners indefinitely. Sessions said working on market-based approaches and setting up inclusive business models is one of the best ways for NGOs to create sustainable development. He suggested that charities that want to take a business approach align themselves with industries from which they can learn. “The acumen and business process is something we saw as being really valuable to tap into,” he said. Devex spoke to the team to learn more about how NGOs can best place themselves to become attractive private sector partners, and how they can ensure their development aims are achieved alongside businesses’ corporate returns. 1. Demonstrate your local reach Businesses entering new markets need partners with local knowledge that can identify and reach beneficiaries. According to Wright, setting up such projects as purely business enterprises is “a long way away.” “NGOs have a lot of capabilities to bring to the party here,” he said. “Although we have a presence in Africa, GSK has almost nobody in Zambia, whereas CARE International has got a proper operation, staff that speak the language, and capabilities to do things on the ground. Most of what NGOs have to prove [to private sector partners] is that they have the capability, and they can implement programs that deliver impact.” CARE International’s Sessions admitted the choice was partly about being in the right place at the right time. “Geography played a part,” he said. 2. Show understanding of business objectives A turnoff for private sector partners are NGOs that lack understanding of business objectives. Barclays’ former global head of citizenship and reputation, Diane Eshleman, who has since left the company, said other potential partners the companies approached “did struggle with that concept.” “A more conventional view of these kinds of initiatives is totally philanthropic,” she said. “We spent some time talking to them in some detail on [Harvard Business School professor] Michael Porter’s concept of ‘shared value’ – you can drive societal benefits but also commercial outcomes at the same time. This was kind of a foreign concept for some of them.” Sessions agreed that CARE International’s history of forming partnerships with large businesses played a key role in its selection. “We had a pre-existing partnership with both GSK and Barclays,” he said. “We know how to work with big business because we've been doing it for 10 years. That gave GSK and Barclays confidence in us as a partner. We also had to have confidence in them. Any partnership is not just a one-way street.” 3. Agree a vision up front In conversations with Devex, all three partners agreed it was important for the parties to agree expectations and goals before a partnership begins. Sessions said the Live Well project was a good fit for his organization as it aligned with many of the charity’s existing objectives around improving access to health products and boosting livelihoods. He suggested NGOs agree a framework for working with companies that sets out parameters and guidelines, and that this is regularly refreshed. “It's important to do that work up front, that due diligence process to find the right partner and see the bigger picture,” said Sessions. 4. Target the right partner If NGOs wish to approach potential private sector partners, Eshleman said they need to do their homework first and identify the corporate’s “sweet spot.” “Our focus is on financial or digital inclusion or empowerment, as well as employability,” she explained. “An NGO coming to us with an idea on malaria eradication is probably not going to get that much traction.” Wright agreed, and suggested that looking at the SDG framework can help civil society organizations identify a common language with corporates. “Look for the overlap of shared objectives,” he said. Update, Nov. 7: This story was amended to clarify that Live Well has sold more than 120,000 health care products to date, and reached an average 45,000 people each month. Read more international development news online, and subscribe to The Development Newswire to receive the latest from the world’s leading donors and decision-makers — emailed to you free every business day.