Anna Gero: Incompatible philosophies or complementary roles? Civil society and business engagement in the WASH sector
1. THINK
CHANGE
DO
Incompatible Philosophies or
Complementary Roles?
Civil Society and Business Engagement in the
Water, Sanitationand John McKibbin
Tim Brennan And Hygiene Sector
Anna Gero, Janina Murta, Lee Leong, Juliet Willetts
Development Futures Conference, November 21st – 22nd 2013
2. Emerging trends and pathways to
address poverty
• Increasing recognition of need to use aid to
leverage local investment
• Recognition of lack of sustainability of
many aid programs and support
• Emergence of new organisational types
including „socially‟ minded business
3. “Enterprise in WASH”: Why this research?
Private & social
enterprise
+
CSOs
=
?
Mixed levels of
skills within
CSOs to work
with private
sector
Growing role
of small-scale
business
Growing need to move
beyond voluntary or
subsidised approaches
6. systematic review +
evidence from field work in Indonesia
Private and
social
enterprise
engagement
with CSOs –
what does it
look like?
What are the
outcomes for
the poor
resulting from
enterprise
engagement?
How aligned, or
not, are the
objectives and
incentives of
CSOs and
enterprise?
7. Literature Findings: Business Models
• Formal private operators working under licence
• Franchises and network models
• Informal private sector providers
• Importers, Retailers, and Wholesalers
• “One stop shop” / “Rural Sanitation
Marts” / “Sani-centres”
• Prefabricated concrete producers
• Micro entrepreneurs
• NGOs and CBOs
• User associations
• Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs)
• Large companies and international /
multi-national corporations
8. Literature Findings: Business Models
• Formal private operators working under licence
• Franchises and network models
Businesses are
Importers, Retailers, and Wholesalers
diverse, dynamic,
“One stop shop” / “Rural Sanitation
Marts” / “Sani-centres”
respond to demand,
Prefabricated concrete producers
context specific
Micro entrepreneurs
• Informal private sector providers
•
•
•
•
• NGOs and CBOs
• User associations
• Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs)
• Large companies and international /
multi-national corporations
9. Literature Findings: Private & social
enterprise engagement with CSOs
CSOs: bottom-up
role, capacity
building, enterprise
establishment; some
policy-level support
in water
CSOs as agents in
supply chain
CSOs: role in “formalisation” of CBOs
CSOs lack
business skills
& often
inexperienced
in engaging
working in the
private sector
CSOs: role
across, and as a
link
between, busine
sses
CSOs: engage in various aspects of the WASH private
sectors BUT little attention paid to sustainability of their role
CSOs: Sanitation Marketing: emerging trend for CSO
engagement with businesses & government
10. Literature Findings
Incompatible philosophies
• Outcomes for the poor: Business focus on profit, not
prioritising poor as customers
• Sanitation Marketing: capture least poor customers 1st, to
create aspirational model for poorer to access safer
sanitation
Complementary roles
• Pro-poor innovation – matching match design and
delivery of WASH products to specific needs of the poor
• Flexible pricing to enable poor households‟ entry into
market
11. Findings: Evidence from the field
Incompatible philosophies
Diversity of perspectives
• CSOs who didn‟t see a big difference – cases of
entrepreneurs with strong social motives
“there are
differences but not
serious…it‟s in line”
“I didn’t make any terms- 1 week, 1
month, 1 year-1.5 years- we’re not only
about business, it is a social purpose”.
• Market based solutions running contrary to concepts of
community self-sufficiency and sharing
“The least you’re dependent on the market, the more you’re
independent…when they have knowledge they have to share
it, not keeping it for yourself…[it’s the] spirit of sharing.”
12. Findings: Evidence from the field
Complementary Roles
• Ensuring long-term sustainability
“…when people have been triggered
[to want a toilet], and supply is needed,
our role is to pass on information
[about potential suppliers].”
“NGOs are funded on a
project basis. But if [it] can
transfer a project into a
business opportunity then it
can continue.”
• Intermediaries to allow support to be provided to PSE
from donors or from government
“Donors can’t directly provide
private sector because of
regulations”
13. Findings: Evidence from the field
Challenges
• Kind of support to provide to
PSEs
• Avoid promoting specific
enterprises
• Donor reporting requirements
focused on short-term targets
• Lack of knowledge and interest in
building PSE capacity amongst
government
“…real entrepreneurs should
sacrifice their own money to
start a business”.
14. Emerging trends and pathways to
address poverty
• Supporting „sustainable‟ small-scale business is
challenging, but possible
• Can‟t assume the poor will be targeted- needs
strategies to address this
• Social entrepreneurs, social-minded business
blurs the boundary between private sector and
civil society, and represents an important area of
focus in addressing poverty
Micro, small and medium enterprises are emerging as players in sustainable water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services. Civil society organisations (CSOs) have been working with private and social enterprise to build ‘professionalisation’ of service delivery, moving beyond voluntary, solely community-focused approachesThere is a need for new thinking and evidence on private enterprise involvement in WASH for the poor – does it work? Is it sustainable?Investigating how CSOs can best work at the interface of private, civil society and public sectors to support equitable, sustainable service delivery for the poor
Our presentation provides evidence of both “incompatible roles” and complementary philosophies” from our systematic review AND recent field work in Indonesia (September 2013)The Systematic review involved:Search strategy Academic and grey (non-peer reviewed) literature Inclusion and exclusion criteria Research team: Document each step Quantitative Analysis Qualitative AnalysisThe in-country element involved 2 weeks in Indonesia in September 2013, with semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions with government, non-government and private sector stakeholders. This provided case examples of various forms of engagement between CSOs and PSEs.
Businesses – particularly micro, small and medium enterprises - are diverse, dynamic -they respond to demand, and they context specific. Socio-cultural elements are also at play, with some contexts more supportive than others in enterprise development.
0.5 minIn terms of differences in philosophies and aims, a diversity of perspectives were heardOn the one hand there were CSOs who didn’t see a big difference in their objectives versus those of enterprise.This was particularly the case where the enterprise involved in fact had strong social motives anyway, which aligned to those of the CSO. For instance one sanitation entrepreneur described his lenient approach to seeking repayments due to a social mission On the other hand, there were examples of CSOs whose approach was rooted in concepts of community self-sufficiency and sharing, and viewed market based solutions as running contrary to this and as a thus resisted working to engage with PSE
1 minWhere CSOs were engaging to support PSE, the key motives behind their engagement appeared to be a focus on sustainabilityNGOs funded on project basis and development of sustainable markets enable sustainability beyond the time-frame of a funded ‘project’So CSOs were either setting up PSE and/or promoting existent PS suppliers after demand has been createdCSOs were also being prompted to act as intermediaries to allow support to be provided to PSE from donors or from government. There was a perception that donors and government could not directly support for-profit organisations. A government representative noted that there was a need for more local NGOs (whom government can fund directly) who could act as intermediaries to support development of sanitation enterprises.
1.5 minCSOs met with somechallenges in engaging with PSE. CSOs are often inexperienced in working with the private sector and may lack the skills to implement market based approaches effectively. Where they were based in locations with very little business activity, finding individuals with the outlook and capacity to act as entrepreneurs was challenging. CSOs were also being tested in terms of defining the limits to the kind of support they were best placed to give as civil society actors. For instance, questions arose about whether financial support to enterprise was appropriate and some CSOs defended the idea that entrepreneurs need to embrace risk to create ownership of the business and its operations was seen as important to ensure long-term sustainability of market based such solutions.Equally, concerning tensions arose from CSOs perceived need to avoid promoting specific enterprises or companies. For instance one CSO involved in supporting distribution of water purification products spoke of how they wanted to promote access to supply, but not a specific brand, and therefore developed information communication materials that were non-brand specific. Equally, donor reporting requirements were suggested to focus on short-term targets (e.g. number of people with access to improved sanitation) rather than development of sustainable markets that might grow beyond the time-frame of a funded ‘project’. Finally, CSOs working closely with government experienced a lack of knowledge and interest by government in building PSE capacity, since this area is very new, and will take time for the public sector to find it’s place and role.
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