Institutional Learning and Change Initiative

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Abstract:

Despite increasing interest and support for multi-stakeholder partnerships, examples of successful partnerships are either uncommon or undocumented. There is also a dearth of simple tools and approaches that enable research and development organisations to benchmark the status of their partnerships, assess their effectiveness and performance, and to reflect on their experiences and lessons in partnerships. This paper applied the After Action Review (AAR) and peer assist, two innovative techniques to facilitate collective reflection and analysis of experiences with partnerships based on the key elements for success and challenges of maintaining and institutionalizing effective partnerships. Results highlight the dynamic process of partnership formation and the key elements that contribute to their success. These include: (i) shared vision and complementarity, (ii) consistent support from senior leadership; (iii) evidence of institutional and individual benefits; (iv) investments in human and social capital; (v) and joint resources mobilization and sharing. However, institutionalizing partnerships requires creative strategies for coping with high staff turnover and over-commitment, conflicting personalities and institutional differences, and transaction costs. The paper suggests that AAR and Peer Assist techniques can be extremely valuable tools when combined with well grounded qualitative analytical methods and rigourous quantitative analyses to strengthen the robustness of the results.