Partnership Types
The State Department’s diverse portfolio of partnerships includes activities targeting:
- Energy policy and climate change
- The fight against HIV/AIDS in Africa
- Economic policy and trade promotion
- Educational and cultural exchanges
- Promoting Corporate Social Responsibility abroad
- Human rights and labor issues
- Security and counter-terrorism
- Population and refugee resettlement
- Democracy promotion
- Volunteerism and interfaith service
- Gender equality and women’s empowerment
Many types of private organizations can serve as potential partners. Potential partners can include U.S. and foreign government agencies, UN organizations, international/regional finance institutions, donor agencies, academic institutions, religious organizations, foundations, multinational corporations and other businesses, trade associations, unions, non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, and individual major donors or investors.
Today, U.S. Department of State public-private partnerships (PPP) assist in the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS, education and training, improve access to potable water, advance public diplomacy, counter radical extremism, and enhance national security – to name only a few examples of their application.
Four catalysts of partnerships:
Categorization of existing PPPs related to public diplomacy and international affairs reveals four different types, in terms of what they are organized around:
- a shared policy objective
- enhanced U.S. reputation and visibility abroad
- resource sharing
- a development objective
Public-private partners often collate around shared policy objectives.
Many partnerships with the private sector are focused on addressing a specific, discrete policy issue either within a country or internationally. The primary driver for partnering of this type is the added legitimacy that voices and expertise from the private sector can provide on particular topics such as trade, non-proliferation and counter-terrorism/security. By partnering with the private sector on a particular policy agenda, the Department is better able to advance its position than it could on its own.
Policy PPPs engage in a variety of activities. PPPs in this category often center on taskforces and roundtables with decision-makers, the creation of policy papers, and door-knocks in national capitals. There is often an advocacy nature to these partnerships with the U.S. government advocating a particular policy stance. Policy PPPs could include initiatives focused on the WTO or NAFTA implementation, climate change, and nuclear non-proliferation. One very prominent example of this type of PPP is the Asia-Pacific Partnership (APP).
Public-private partners enhance U.S. reputation or visibility.
In many cases partnerships may be driven from a desire to enhance reputation or visibility of the U.S. on a certain issue. In this case, the actual partnership may center around a charitable, educational or development objective, but the main driver for DOS participation is improved visibility of the USG on a particular subject or event, such as the South Asian Earthquake, corporate social responsibility, breast cancer awareness, etc.
Typical focus areas and examples of State Department PPPs that enhance U.S. reputation or visibility may focus on issues such as corporate social responsibility (CSR), or breast cancer awareness. A prime example of this type of PPP is the CSR web site created by the U.S. Embassy in Brazil in order to highlight the social and economic investments made by U.S. businesses in Brazil.
Public-private partners offer each other resources they lack.
Sometimes the State Department partners primarily because the private sector has a resource that the U.S. government cannot easily acquire, e.g. funding, technology, expertise, distribution networks. In this case, the main reason for partnering is the ability to access those private sector resources that will enhance the ability of State to fulfill a stated objective. The Department will partner with the private sector to access skills, technology and expertise that it could not procure on its own.
Examples of resource sharing PPPs vary. The private sector may offer financial ($) or infrastructure resources to the partnership. It may provide vast markets and reach. Sometimes, it offers technology that cannot be purchased or otherwise acquired easily. It may also offer key expertise or invaluable networks of people and organizations. The private sector may have deeply rooted links to a community or issue. Finally the private sector may offer the kind of legitimacy to an issue otherwise unavailable to the State Department. Examples of this type of partnerships include the Phones-for-Health and Democracy Video Challenge projects.
Public-private partners further development objectives.
While USAID is the primary avenue for foreign assistance programming within the U.S. government, State Department bureaus, offices, and embassies also engage in international development activities and initiatives, the most prominent of which are PEPFAR and the Trafficking in Persons office. Partnerships of this type often start from a desire to enhance or grow impact of a development objective by engaging the private sector. Private sector involvement, in other words, boosts the development impact by generating increased social and economic improvements.
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