Partnership Effectiveness

AccountAbility works with multisector partnerships, to help them develop accountability and governance mechanisms which enable them to deliver on their goals.

As partnerships evolve, the critical task is often to balance the need for formal governance structures to secure internal coordination and external legitimacy, with the need for healthy informal processes that bring flexibility and innovation. We provided tailored support to partnerships and donors through:

• Stakeholder convening - we act as a facilitator and partnership broker in bringing together impacted and influential stakeholders to debate issues and co-create innovative partnerships where they are needed.
• Partnership planning - we support partnerships in creating development plans based on sound strategic understanding of the evolving resourcing and governance needs at different stages of partnership development.
• Partnership review - we carry out reviews of existing partnerships to help them identify where their design and management needs to be revised in line with the partnership's evolving needs. The Partnership Governance and AccountAbility diagnostic tool looks at goals and identity, strategic planning, governance structures and processes, performance accountability, financial integrity and stakeholder engagement.
• Stakeholder capacity building. We support the development of capacity of stakeholders to engage in partnership governance and accountability . This might involve the development of training programmes or more intensive mentoring, both with stakeholder representatives and with donors. We also work with local partners and through regional dialogues, to increase the capacity in developing countries to advance the quality of partnership governance and accountability.

Alejandro Litovsky (right) at the II Spanish Iberoamerican Conference on Corporate Social Responsibility: Partnerships for Development

Steve Rochlin reviews the accountability and governance initiatives developed to counter corruption.  Fighting Corruption: Perspectives from AccountAbility, part of Policy Innovations’ (program of Carnegie Council) second Workshop for Ethics in Business, New York City on September 19, 2007.