SCOPING

Initial mapping of institutions and context relevant to our breakthroughs

FORMING PARTNERSHIP

Partnership assessment and selection

DESIGN

Joint program design and partner agreements

DELIVERY

Implementation and ongoing monitoring

PHASE-OUT

Transition and/or closure of partnership agreement

Scoping

STAKEHOLDER ANALYSIS

A key to developing and building strategic partnerships towards the realization of children’s rights is a strong analysis of the internal and external landscape of actors or stakeholders vis-à-vis our goals and programs. Stakeholders can be defined as parties – may be individuals, groups, a community or an institution – who affect or are affected by the programs or projects we create for children. In a stakeholder analysis, the levels of interest and capacity of these stakeholders to influence changes in policies, practices and behaviors of others are being accounted for.

TYPES OF PARTNERS

Civil Society Organization

Many Save the Children countries of operations have strong and vibrant civil societies, including non-government organizations (NGOs), community based organization (CBOs), people organizations (POs), faith based organizations (FBOs), trade unions, professional associations, children’s organizations and formal and informal alliances, networks and consortia. Our cooperation with CSOs might be to ensure and empower poor children’s and families’ access to rights and services, to support humanitarian response, or for advocacy. A key aspect of our cooperation with CSOs is supporting long-term capacity strengthening, so that our partnerships over time contribute to stronger national organizations. We are concerned not just with individual organizations, but with supporting sectoral strengthening in the areas we work.

Government

In all contexts, we strive to engage and partner with government institutions – agencies and units – to ensure that we do not end up “replacing” government in delivering services. Government partnerships range from village and district-level authorities to national ministries. These partnerships can either be directly with the government institutions or through collaboration with other stakeholders working with or advocating to the government.

Private Sector

For-profit entities, whether international or local, formal or informal, have important resources, expertise and connections with the people we want to reach. Increasingly, the private sector is finding ways to work with INGOs, and can be partners to help us achieve our breakthroughs.

Other categories of partners – Research/Training/Academic Institutions, Media and Alliances and Networks can fall under any of the major types of partners described above.

TYPES OF PARTNERSHIP

With a clear analysis of the stakeholder landscape and initial list of potential partners that can be engaged through programs, the next consideration would be to identify what level of partnership is the most appropriate and impact-oriented. For Save the Children, partnerships can be considered as strategic, implementation, or alliances and networks.