Partnerships and the Good-Governance Agenda: Improving Service Delivery Through State\u2013NGO Collaborations

Masooda Bano

doi:10.1007/s11266-017-9937-y

Abstract

First under the Millennium Development Goals and now under the Sustainable Development Goals, partnerships for development, especially between state and NGOs, remain a valued goal. Partnerships are argued to improve provision of basic social services to the poor: the state is viewed as providing scale, with NGOs ensuring good governance. Close study of three leading partnership arrangements in Pakistan (privatization of basic health units, an ‘adopt a school’ program, and low-cost sanitation) shows how state–NGO collaborations can indeed improve service delivery; however, few of these collaborations are capable of evolving into embedded partnerships that can bring about positive changes in government working practices on a sustainable basis. In most cases, public servants tolerate, rather than welcome, NGO interventions, due to political or donor pressure. Embedded partnerships require ideal-type commitment on the part of the NGO leadership, which most donor-funded NGOs fail to demonstrate. For effective planning, it is important to differentiate the benefits and limitations of routine co-production arrangements from those of embedded partnerships.

Highlights

Developing state–NGO partnerships to ensure delivery of basic social services to all in the developing world is integral to contemporary development thinking
Brinkerhoff (2002, 2003) notes how policy documents by major development programs such as USAID’s New Partnership Initiative, the UN Common Country Framework, and the World Bank’s Comprehensive Development Framework and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers placed explicit emphasis on the need for governments to consult and encourage the participation of civil society as well as the private sector. It was the growing consensus within the development agencies that the state alone cannot deliver and neither can NGOs that resulted in the inclusion of support for development partnerships as a key Millennium Development Goal (Brinkerhoff 2002)
Given the evidence in the above studies that communityembedded partnerships can improve service delivery, the question is why are international development agencies often unable to cultivate effective state–NGO partnerships? This article addresses this question with evidence from Pakistan

Summary

Introduction

Developing state–NGO partnerships to ensure delivery of basic social services to all in the developing world is integral to contemporary development thinking. Brinkerhoff (2002, 2003) notes how policy documents by major development programs such as USAID’s New Partnership Initiative, the UN Common Country Framework, and the World Bank’s Comprehensive Development Framework and Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers placed explicit emphasis on the need for governments to consult and encourage the participation of civil society as well as the private sector It was the growing consensus within the development agencies that the state alone cannot deliver and neither can NGOs that resulted in the inclusion of support for development partnerships as a key Millennium Development Goal (Brinkerhoff 2002). Given the evidence in the above studies that communityembedded partnerships can improve service delivery, the question is why are international development agencies often unable to cultivate effective state–NGO partnerships? This article addresses this question with evidence from Pakistan

Background and Methodology

Findings

Conclusion