Library & Research: Publication

The central aim of this paper is to problematise the notion of partnership in development practice, with particular emphasis on partnerships in the field of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D). It seeks to challenge taken for granted ideas concerning such partnerships, and it
argues that those involved in such initiatives need to have in place formal concepts about their structure, organisation and intention.

More specifically, it has three main objectives:

• to highlight the diversity of interpretations of partnerships in the global community;
• to explore some of the literature relating to the successful delivery of partnerships, focusing especially on ICT4D; and
• to draw on the experiences of one such initiative, Imfundo: Partnership for IT in Education, to provide insights into the practice of multi-stakeholder partnerships in development.

The paper concludes that seven key practical elements need to be in placefor ICT4D partnerships to be successful. The first, and most important of all is that partnerships must be based on trust. Second, it is important for all partnerships to have a clear focus. Partnerships must actually deliver clearly defined objectives and outputs if they are to be worthwhile, and a fine line needs to be drawn between the efforts involved in shaping partnerships and then utilising those partnerships to produce an output that is worthwhile for marginalised communities. Third, all partnerships must have enthusiastic leaders, who will act as champions for their particular cause. A fourth fundamental element of partnership that is all too often ignored is the need to focus on sustainability from the very beginning of the design of any activities. Very few ICT4D initiatives across Africa have as yet shown themselves to be sustainable, and most rely heavily on the input
of external resources to make them at all viable. This issue of sustainability is closely related to the fifth key element that needs to be in place for successful partnerships, namely a balance between demand and supply. This is not an easy objective to achieve, but all the evidence suggests that activities that are supply led, and that do not sufficiently take into consideration the real needs and aspirations of poor communities will rapidly fail. Sixth, it is important for partnerships to invest time in networking activities. While such activities are to some extent tied in with reenforcing trust, it is also important for partners to be kept regularly informed of a
partnership’s activities. A final important practical issue is the need for transparency and a sound ethical basis upon which any partnership is formed. If all of these elements are in place, then a strong basis for implementing effective ICT-supported educational partnerships will have been established.

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Final_version_WSIS_partnerships.pdf