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PPPLab Newsletter #02
In this newsletter:
  1. Welcome to our second newsletter!
  2. Events and collaborations where have we been?
  3. Column Joost Guijt about 18 months to grow a good partnership
  4. Second calls FDOV and FDW newly funded projects
  5. Interview Steven Gajadin Rwanda's own sugarcane industry
  6. PPPLab Advisory Group experts from the Netherlands and abroad
  7. Interesting reads check out what we've been reading 
  8. Upcoming publications what are we working on? 
1.Welcome to the second PPPLab newsletter! 
Welcome to the second newsletter of the PPPLab! Our activities are starting to get shape, results are being finalized, and soon we will be able to share them with you. In this newsletter we would like to give you an update on what we have come across in the past months and what we are working on.
 
2.Events and collaborations
 
On 10 March we were present at the 
Scaling Up Dutch Efforts for Global Nutrition event at Unilever’s R&D headquarters in Vlaardingen. The Netherlands Working Group on Nutrition welcomed private sector parties, civil society, knowledge institutes and public actors to join the discussion on nutrition security in the Sustainable Development Goals. Read more about our impressions of the inspiring afternoon, where Prof. Lawrence Haddad presented the main results of the Global Nutrition Report 2014.

The PPPLab was also present at the second of two evaluation meetings of the Sustainable Water Fund (FDW), which took place on 17 and 20 March in Amsterdam. All attendants contributed with valuable feedback following from experiences with the first two FDW calls, and gave recommendations for a possible third call in 2016. In general, FDW is considered as a stimulating factor for cooperation, innovation and partnerships. However, the regulation is also seen as a tough rocedure which demands quite some patience from the applicants. A full report of the meetings can be found here, and all presentations are available at this website. 

On 9 April the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) invited a variety of players for the FDW Sustainability Day in The Hague. PPPLab’s Sjef Ernes presented the preliminary findings of an in-depth study on business cases within PPPs and how they are financed, elaborated by the PPPLab in cooperation with BoP Innovation Center and Rebel Consultancy Group. IRC provided information about three 'sustainability-instruments', which stipulate the roles and responsibilities of the FDW consortium and other relevant parties towards ensuring the sustainability of project results after PPPs end. Also Jetske Bouma of PBL and Jan Joost Kessler of AidEnvironment presented their study on PPPs and opportunities for Inclusive Green Growth (IGG). Read more about the day, and the various presentations related to the new sustainability compact.

The PPPLab actively seeks to connect to international discussions and research on PPPs in food and water domains. A ‘Masterclass PPPs’ will be held in Viet Nam in September 2015 as part of the Inclusive Agribusiness South East Asia Roundtable event. More information about the roundtable can be found on inclusiveasia.org.
 
3.Column: Joost Guijt
In this column our Management Team members introduce themselves, and why they are involved in the PPPLab. This time: Joost Guijt of the Centre for Development Innovation (CDI) of Wageningen University and Research Centre.

“I am a member of the PPPLab’s management committee, and work full-time for CDI. With many committed, fun and experienced colleagues I work on all kinds of market-driven livelihood improvement topics. I lead the programme design for the 4S@scale project, which is one of the PPPs funded under the first FDOV call. 

Myself and other CDI colleagues working on PPPs noticed we were dealing with similar issues and asking similar questions. This led us to approach the ministry with the suggestion: why don’t we look at all the partnerships in the facility and see what we can learn from the whole? They put us in touch with the Partnerships Resource Centre, also knocking on the same door with the same suggestion, and presto: a partnership was born that eventually led to the PPPLab, together with Aqua for All and SNV Netherlands Development Organization.

I would like to recommend the recent Oxfam ‘Moral Hazard’ report to you. It puts the cat among the pigeons about the importance of being downwardly accountable to those we are trying to help through PPPs. You can argue some of the content, but not the warnings that PPPs need to justify what they are doing for whom.

As a rule of thumb, I expect all good partnerships need 18 months to become really functional. As many of us try to deal with increasingly complex problems and opportunities, there is a justifiable appreciation of the need to combine skills, knowledge, connections and resources to make structural improvements. This can lead to slightly simplistic assumptions about how easily partnerships will emerge from a shared general need, almost spontaneously. Investing in finding who is truly necessary for you to partner with, formulating clear common goals and finding ways of working together is a necessary investment in time and resources. In the end, it does pay off to take the partnership just as seriously as the goals that bring you and your partners together.”
 

4.Second calls FDOV and FDW


On Monday 1 December 2014 the tender for the Facility for Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Food Security (FDOV) closed. RVO has received 29 applications for Private Sector Development projects, and 31 applications on Food Security. The total amount of requested subsidies is € 105 million and the available amount of subsidy for this call is € 40 million. It is planned that RVO informs all applicants on 1 May 2015 on the result of the selection procedure. An overview of the second call FDW projects can be found here.
 
5. Interview: Steven Gajadin
The sugarcane industry in Rwanda is facing multiple challenges: shortage of suitable land and severe floods of the Nyaborongo river lead to low productivity and yields. This forces Rwanda to import sugar, which leaves customers dependent on volatile prices.The FDOV funded project Sugar Make It Work aims to strengthen the local Rwandan sugarcane industry.

PPPLab’s Marleen Brouwer spoke with project coordinator Steven Gajadin of this award-winning PPP: “I am proud of every partner bringing in its own expertise. This complementarity is the power of our partnership.” Read more.



 
6.PPPLab Advisory Group
We are happy to present our Advisory Group (AG) to you. The AG will act as an in-depth content entity that reviews and feeds PPPLab content work, and creates cross-fertilization between specialists as well as between public, private and civic domains. Its advice will be considered as a key determinant when formulating (parts of) our annual plans, and the AG will ensure the quality of PPPLab’s work. The first get-together of the AG will be on 11 and 12 June, when the PPPLab organises a knowledge seminar. More information will follow soon on our website.
 
7.Interesting reads
The PPPLab would like to share the following interesting reads and resources on PPPs with you: More resources about PPPs in food, water and private sector development can be found here.
 
8.Upcoming publications
The PPPLab is presently completing its first set of own reconnaissance and studies. In the course of May/June the reader can expect study reports and working documents on a range of topics and activities, such as:
  • a FDW portfolio scan
  • a FDOV portfolio scan
  • a first comparison between FDW and FDOV and other Dutch funding and financing instruments for development in water safety, food security and private sector development
  • a pilot partnership canvas model
  • a review of current knowledge on PPPs and inclusive business approaches

We always welcome your ideas for PPP research and exchange activities! Please get in touch via our website.