The Partnering with Governments (PwG) programme aims to build the capacity of governments, business and civil society to partner more effectively and to mainstream cross-sector partnerships as an essential  mechanism to achieve sustainable development.

PwG is a partnership between the International Business Leaders Forum, GTZ ( the German international sustainable development agency), and a number of major businesses: Microsoft, Rio Tinto, SAP, Shell and the Shell Foundation. It is coordinated by The Partnering Initiative.

Although there is a growing momentum towards the use of cross-sector partnerships, relatively few cross sector partnerships involving Southern governments have been established. Of those that have been formed, many have not fulfilled their potential. There may be several reasons for this: a limited awareness of the potential of partnerships to achieve government goals; a lack of skills and capacity within government and other sectors to be able to implement partnerships; or a legislative framework that makes partnering difficult in practice.

'Partnering with Governments' is a major international initiative to examine these issues in detail and help build the capacity of governments and business to partner more effectively.

During the initial two-year period, the programme is focussing on five countries in Africa: South Africa, Madagascar, Gabon, Guinea and Zambia. Working with local partners and existing programmes in each country, it will facilitate multi-stakeholder groups as a source of insight, information and connections to help develop and implement the capacity building programme.

Specifically the programme aims to:

• Better understand the challenges businesses and governments face in partnering together
• Increase understanding of the value of cross-sector partnering for African and other governments in achieving more effective sustainable development
• Create a more enabling environment in which partnership approaches to development can flourish
• Help build governmental capacity to partner more effectively with business and NGOs through awareness-raising, partnership skills training and mentoring
• Catalyse a wide group of interested parties from across the sectors to push forward the partnerships agenda, and support and connect partnership practitioners through an online forum.
  

In-country activities

In South Africa, there is already significant awareness of the potential of partnerships to achieve sustainable development. Within the legal framework there is provision for formal finance-based public-private partnerships. Due to the complexity and bureaucracy of the development process, there are relatively few active initiatives and these tend to concentrate on large scale infrastructure. In addition to these ‘formal’ PPPs, many municipalities are engaging business and civil society in less-formal, multi-sector partnerships on a variety of issues such as tourism, education, community development around mines and local economic development.

Working closely with the Department for Provincial and Local Government, the programme has ambitious plans for a large scale and widespread development of capacity for effective partnering across government, business and civil society delivered by a range of business schools, public sector training agencies and other service providers.

In Zambia, there is less of a track record for partnership than in South Africa. A stronger emphasis on awareness-raising therefore plays a major part of the programme here. A multi-stakeholder meeting was held in October 2007 and a major workshop to build understanding of partnership will be held in October 2008.

In Gabon, Madagascar, and Guinea the programme is working with, or plans to develop, specific cross-sector partnerships, helping to build capacity accordingly. The aim is for these partnerships to become examples both of the type of partnerships that can contribute to sustainability in these countries and the capacity building required to make them happen.