The Partnership Brokers Association

PBA contributed to an advocacy campaign involving UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, The Partnering Initiative and others, focused on creating a more enabling environment for partnerships. PBA Associates prepared a paper for the final report on the contribution and value that partnership brokers bring to partnerships.
The report was launched at the UN General Assembly in September. One of the key findings of the study was that a very significant determinant of a partnership’s success was related to having an independent third-party specialist providing facilitation and support. The report pointed out that partnerships need to invest in the process of partnering, where possible with the support of such a specialist (broker), to ensure inclusion, unlock innovation and set the partnership up for success. They should also build in stronger monitoring to demonstrate value creation, measure progress to allow adaptation, and keep the partnership healthy and effective.

• The Unite to Ignite report
• The Unite to Ignite case-studies

If you’ve ever worked in the development industry, you may have felt a sense of unease about the power dynamics at play. This month, in our Stories from Practice, we meet Soli Middleby, who delves into this discomfort and offers insights on how to navigate it, through her paper, “Mediating the power imbalances of development: A paradox for partnership brokers,”

Middleby argues that the western development industry is built upon complex and historic power imbalances that tend to center the interests and perspectives of donors. This can undermine effective partnerships and ultimately perpetuate the very inequalities that we aim to address.

Using the practice of partnership brokering as a lens, Middleby explores how these power imbalances operate in practice, how they can be disrupted, and how they are ultimately reproduced by brokers and other development professionals. She concludes that we face an uncomfortable paradox in which our work to transform power imbalances also maintains the identities, institutions and interests that reproduce them and that how we choose to hold this paradox is critical if we are to ever ‘rethink development’

This paper is a thought-provoking read for anyone in the development field who is grappling with these issues. It challenges us to consider how we can hold this paradox and still work towards rethinking development. You can read Soli Middleby’s paper here,  for more practical insights.

Annie Sloman

This month, in our Stories from Practice, we meet Annie Sloman, as she explores and reflects on how partnership brokering should, and can, support decolonization of aid.

Based on her experience as a partnership broker in Timor-Leste, Annie Sloman discusses possible contributions of partnership brokering to decolonization and combatting racism in international development and humanitarian action.

She unravels the hidden assumptions about power and privilege that we often take for granted in our practice, and how such assumptions can, in fact, be counter-productive in reducing systemic inequalities that we are working so hard to overcome.

She gives insightful ideas on how issues of power and privilege can be addressed immediately and continuously in ongoing partnership activities.

Read Annie’s paper for six practical guidelines as to what you can and should do differently in your practice, as a partnership broker – especially if you wonder whether your practice re-enforces colonial inequalities or transforms societies for a better world.

The Certificate in Brokering Partnerships Remotely is a five week course delivered online. The next training will be running from 8 September – 6 October 2021. Weekly webinars will be hosted on Wednesdays at 3:00PM UTC (8:00 Seattle & Vancouver / 10:00 Bogota, Lima & Mexico City / 11:00 Ottawa & Washington DC / 12:00 Brasilia / 15:00 Dakar / 16:00 Abuja & London / 17:00 Johannesburg & Madrid / 18:00 Nairobi).
The course is delivered in English but some of the materials (Course Manual) can be available in Spanish and Portuguese. Participants can also choose to submit their journals in Spanish or Portuguese instead of English.

To get more information and register for the course please visit the Remote Partnering website.

Over the last year, being able to collaborate effectively on partnerships, networks and alliances that are operating remotely has become a ‘must-have’ skill. Our online Brokering Partnerships Remotely course helps to grow your skills, confidence and competencies in brokering partnerships at a distance. This training is an opportunity to experiment and test out novel methods and solutions for the ‘new normal’ of operating remotely. Learnings from the course can be put to immediate use in your day to day partnering work.

Three regional cohorts have been planned for 2021 (more information and to register):

• Europe, Africa, Asia: 3 – 31 March 2021 with Bulbul Baksi, Ros Tennyson and Lola Gostelow
• Americas cohort: 5 May – 2 June 2021 with Catherine Russ, Helga van Kampen and Jocelyne Daw
  
• Oceania and South-East Asia: 18 August – 15 September 2021 with Julie Mundy and Kate Hayes

This course is also offered on commissioned basis. If your organisation might be interested, please contact info@partnershipbrokers.org.

Is it true that, ‘It’s much harder to build trust without meeting in person’? Perhaps we have a new opportunity to do ‘business as unusual’ and to disrupt the patterns we found ourselves working in that didn’t feel equitable or effective.
Watch the recording of our third Global Dialogue on Partnership to explore with Catherine Russ, who created the prototype for PBA’s ‘Brokering Partnerships Remotely’ certificate course, the disruptive potential offered by remote dynamics in partnerships. Get motivated to try some new things!

Partnerships for the Goals: Is it time to reframe SDG 17 so it’s fit for transformation?

You can now watch the recording of the first in our series of Global Dialogues on Partnership.
SDG 17 – does it reflect an old paradigm of international cooperation? Of donor-recipient relations? Of developed-developing countries? Does it give primacy to economic growth? Why does it represent a narrow conceptualisation of partnerships, and use language that is contradictory to the language of transformation throughout Agenda 2030?

To watch please click here.

The Certificate in Brokering Partnerships Remotely is a five week course delivered online. If you are a partnership practitioner operating remotely and you would like to: explore the issue; build insights and confidence; develop practical approaches suitable for your context and earn a CERTIFICATE in Brokering Partnerships Remotely, you are welcome to join one of the upcoming cohorts:

• Americas cohort: 14 October – 12 November
• Europe, Africa, Middle East & South Asia cohort: 21 October – 18 November
  
• Oceania & South Asia cohort – week of 19 October – 16 November 2020

To get more information and register for the course please visit the Remote Partnering website.

You can now access the recording of the webinar with FSG Managing Director Adeeb Z. Mahmud and PBA Associates from Australia and Canada, Michelle Halse, Julie Mundy and Jocelyne Daw on how partnerships can maximize shared value business strategies for transformational results. The discussion was held on 7th November 2018 with nearly 50 participants. The recording is available here.

PBA is delighted to announce the publication of Shaping Sustainable Change: The role of partnership brokering in optimising collaborative action. The idea of writing the book was first discussed in 2014 and, a year later, was given impetus by the positioning of multi-actor partnerships as central to the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. At the same time, increasing attention was being paid to the role played by individuals and organisations who acted as ‘boundary spanners’ and ‘bridge-builders’ for these relationships. Shaping Sustainable Change aims to make the case for partnership brokering and share information on this emerging profession. In order to offer a useful blend of theory and practice, the book combines the knowledge and experience of PBA’s international network of associates and alumni with perspectives from wider literature and the academic arena. The first section explores the profile and key activities carried out by partnership brokers, and the skills and competencies required to undertake this role. This is followed by examples of partnership brokering practice in relation to different contexts, sectors, themes and partnering phases. The process of compiling the publication has involved a committed group of authors, peer reviewers, editors and proofreaders to whom we are immensely grateful. We hope that the book does justice to the work of partnership brokers everywhere and reinforces the importance of their contribution to building transformational collaborative arrangements for a more equitable and sustainable world.

You can purchase your copy here.

80+ participants took part in a discussion with Adam Kahane, author of ‘Collaborating with the Enemy – How to Work with People You Don’t Agree with or Like or Trust’. In his book Adam introduced the notion of ‘stretch collaboration’, which takes us beyond conventional collaboration where we can control what happens (the goal, plans, roles, even outcomes). In the webinar he talks about collaboration, power, control, people’s needs and the choices they face when they collaborate…

If you were not able to participate in the webinar, you can watch the recorded discussion here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zswZLJuXa88&feature=youtu.be

The pilot of our new online Remote Partnering Certificate (Level 1) was completed mid March 2018. Read more.

The conference took place in the Netherlands, and had keynotes from Ros Tennyson and Bruce Byiers.

‘I believe that partnering is about sharing (not mitigating) risk; about co-creating (not dictating) solutions; and embracing (not avoiding) the principles of mutuality, transparency, diversity and equity. But it seems that it is surprisingly hard to partner effectively. How can partnership brokers help? How can partnership brokers use monitoring, evaluating, learning and capacity-building approaches to make partnerships have the best possible local impact and global influence?’ Ros Tennyson

For more information on the conference please visit the website: http://www.managingforimpact.org/event/conference-partnering-success-how-me-can-strengthen-partnerships-sustainable-development

To follow on twitter use the hashtag #MEpartnering

We often hear partnership brokers asking for more case studies – more stories about what works and what doesn’t, how other partnerships work in different contexts, what’s new, and what needs to be next on the horizon. So here is your chance to contribute to the growing bank of resources for practitioners: a piece in the next issue of the only online journal dedicated to partnership brokering: Betwixt & Between.

https://partnershipbrokers.org/w/contribute-to-the-journal/

Abstracts are due on 31 March 2016, final piece is due 30 April. Why not give it a go? Never written for a journal before? our Editor, Surinder Hundal, will work with you through the process to get your piece ready for publishing.

Questions? just email us: info@partnershipbrokers.org

PBA’s Ros Tennyson  delivered a keynote speech this week at the ICVA annual conference, and here are the highlights.

To learn more about ICVA please visit their website: https://icvanetwork.org/