How Can We Produce a Win-Win-Win with Partnerships for Mutual Benefit
By Ryan Lee
With the interplay of factors and complexities present in the challenges facing the Asia-Pacific region today, there is an ever-increasing need for a more collaborative and sustainable approach to address challenges including poverty and inequality issues. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates that in the Asia-Pacific region, 400 million people live without electricity, 300 million without safe drinking water and 1.5 billion without basic sanitation. How do we address the complexities of these issues? No one sector can address these types of challenges alone — they need to be tackled efficiently using a multi-disciplinary approach by engaging multiple stakeholders — government, corporate, non-profit organisations and social enterprises.
Multi-sector partnerships can bring together unexpected players to combine their resources and transform the way issues such as healthcare, water, education and housing are approached. Organisations in Asia and globally are slowly becoming more open to the opportunities and benefits of multi-sector partnerships.
The World Bank’s Private Participation in Infrastructure Database shows that the number of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects that reached financial closure in developing Asia between 1991 and 2015 rose by a compounded annual growth rate of 11 percent.
Effective partnerships need a shared vision of success, and mutual benefits are one part of this vision that are required to build a solid foundation for collaboration.
What is mutual benefit and why is it so important to the success of partnerships?
While a partnership needs to have a common benefit — a greater good or collective impact that all partners agree on and are working towards — it is also important that it produces specific benefits for each partner to ensure the ongoing commitment of all partners and for a sustainable collaboration.
You might think it would be hard to find a partnership approach that would produce a mutual benefit or a win-win-win for all partners, and deliver greater impact through the multiplier effect of combined resources. So how can partners with very different approaches and business models find mutual benefit?
Transporting humanitarian aid supplies for a win-win
One such mutually-beneficial partnership is a collaboration between Deutsche Post DHL Group and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Cargo transportation company Deutsche Post DHL Group works with existing aid agency partners to provide logistical and transportation support for relief cargo. In cooperation with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Deutsche Post DHL Group established a global network of Disaster Response Teams (DRTs) in 2005. The DRTs provide logistical support free-of-charge for the movement of relief supplies, including unloading cargo planes, conducting professional warehousing and inventory management as well as loading the relief goods for onward transportation. Since then, Deutsche Post DHL Group has provided aid in many emergency relief operations both in Asia and globally.
When the 7.8 magnitude earthquake strike Nepal in 2015, it killed over 8,800 people and injured more than 22,000. This was one of the worst natural disasters to strike Nepal since the Bihar-Nepal earthquake in 1934. Deutsche Post DHL Group was heavily involved in the humanitarian aid mission. After the earthquake, 33 DHL volunteers were deployed to Nepal in 4 teams to provide logistics support at the Tribhuvan Kathmandu International airport. Anthony Wong, a DRT volunteer based out of Singapore said: “Despite the many challenges, the DRT that deployed to Nepal felt the surge of pride that comes with doing good for others and doing it together as a team.”
This partnerships is mutually beneficial for both Deutsche Post DHL Group and OCHA. The initiative is a source of pride and inspiration for half a million employees at Deutsche Post DHL Group. The humanitarian aid that Deutsche Post DHL Group provided also offered training for their employees and offered a way to demonstrate its corporate responsibility to the public. As for OCHA, partnerships like this directly enhanced and built on its vision and mission to contribute to humanitarian aid.
Improving water and sanitation offers benefits to bank, charity and community
Another example of a mutual benefit partnership is World Vision Lanka’s (WVL) partnership with HSBC Bank and local government to implement a water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) project in Neluwa, Sri Lanka from August 2016 to July 2017. Before the project, less than 50 percent of the local population had access to safe water. The lack of a continuous supply of safe drinking water and poor sanitation and hygiene affected Neluwa residents. WVL worked collaboratively with local authorities to ensure smooth execution of the project. This project also involved the local community as they did much of the trenching and ground preparation for the water pipe system. In addition to monetary contribution, HSBC provided manpower to get some of the work done.
This project has helped to improve the hygiene practices of 930 families in Neluwa while giving them access to safe and reliable drinking water at their doorstep. The bank, the charity, the local government and the community came together with a shared vision to improve water and sanitation. This project increased the morale of HSBC staff and increased the visibility of WVL as there was a marked increase in people wanting to donate to WVL WASH projects as more HSBC staff participated. This partnership gave WVL the experience to work in partnership with corporates to conduct large projects. And the community benefited from improved water, sanitation and hygiene.
How do you establish mutual benefit?
According to our partners at The Partnering Initiative (TPI): “If all partners are expected to contribute to the partnership, they should also be entitled to benefit from the partnership.”
Mutual benefits are what drives a partnership to be sustainable in the long term — if all partners see a benefit to their organisations for being involved, they are much more likely to remain motivated and committed to the partnership.
Mutual benefit for all partners needs to be defined upfront before the collaboration begins, as one of the principles upon which the partnership is based, and agreed upon by all partners.
An independent facilitator can help to build and define the project, including common and mutual benefits, and that’s where organisations like Asia P3 Hub come in — a safe and neutral space for convening mutually beneficial partnerships to deliver transformational change to the societies we live in.
Read more about a shared value, mutually beneficial project that we facilitated between Wahana Visi Indonesia (World Vision’s partner in Indonesia) and Kohler Company for handwashing in schools.
Article was written by Ryan Lee, edited by Jaya Myler.
Ryan Lee is an incoming Materials Engineering student at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He graduated from Ngee Ann Polytechnic with diploma in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. He values connecting with people from all walks of life, enjoys discovering new perspectives, and frequently challenges himself out of his comfort zone. Ryan is currently serving Singapore National Service as Intelligence Research Assistant at the Singapore Armed Forces Mapping Unit. For other parts of his time, he is working as an intern of Asia P3 Hub doing research on multi-sector partnerships.
Reach out to Ryan via LinkedIn.
