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This section provides an outline of recommended organisational policies and strategies used by some organisations to promote equitable partnerships. Also included are policy recommendations made by commissions with an advisory role. Most partnership-related guidelines are rooted in development cooperation policies of the respective governments and the meaning of partnership seems to be shared across the board, at least at the rhetorical level. What happens in practice is unpredictable and dependent on a high number of variables, from the capacity of partners to the political and economic environment in which partners operate. Partnership guidelines and policies comprise three critical aspects: the ethical, the substantive and the procedural. Within the ethical aspect, trust, mutual respect, reciprocity of understanding, shared objectives, complementarity of skills and resources, and continuous communication are the desired principles to bind individual and organisational interaction. Some organisations have a set of ethical principles that guide their mission and relations with external actors in general (mainly funders); some of these are incorporated into ethical principles and policies that guide an organisation's work in partnerships. The ethical issues are critical because their neglect can stand in the way of the substantive and procedural dimensions. The substantive dimension encompasses the actual content matter around which the partnership is being developed. This varies depending on the type of organisation and the type of activities in which it engages. In a partnership, substantive policies are usually agreed internally prior to negotiating them externally (with partners). The procedural dimension highlights the need to define and agree on the operational procedures. Problems at this level can also stand in the way of an effective partnership. A set of procedures need to be agreed on within and between partner organisations to enable the implementation of ethical and substantive policies. These procedures should take into consideration aspects such as available and potential capacity, timeframes, etc. While organisations have clear policies on the substantive and
procedural aspects to guide their individual activities/projects
and those activities take place in partnership, ethical policies
and guidelines for partnerships are not so explicit. Click on the links below to learn about specific organisation's policies:
Click on the links below for more information |
| Updated: 11 April, 2006 |