GPPi hosts conference on partnerships as strategic investments in Berlin

On 12 – 13 December 2005, GPPi, in partnership with the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), the Hertie School of Governance, the Global Compact, and the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), held the conference ​“Business Unusual: Partnerships as Strategic Investments.” DaimlerChrysler and Deutsche Post AG contributed substantial financial support. More than 130 participants from business, civil society, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), government, and the United Nations gathered at the Deutsche Bank Berlin Conference Center and the GTZ Haus in Berlin. Through panel discussions, workshops, and a presentation of the report Business UNusual: Facilitating United Nations Reform through Partnerships, the conference focused on two main themes: partnerships as one of the hidden motors for United Nations reform and partnerships as strategic investments. 

On the first night, the conference participants considered United Nations reform and partnerships. Wolfgang Reinicke, director of GPPi, reminded participants that partnerships between the United Nations, business and civil society were not always self-evident. It was only five years ago that Germany introduced the resolution ​“Toward Global Partnerships” to the United Nations General Assembly. Today public private partnerships are the norm at the UN and they are slowly changing the way it does business.

Georg Kell, Executive Head of the Global Compact, gave an inside perspective on how the United Nations works with business and stressed that change at the United Nations is always ​“incremental not revolutionary.” But he also emphasized the transformative role partnerships can play in the context of institutional and management reform at the UN. In particular, Kell noted that working with external partners puts pressure on the UN to work more effectively and more efficiently.

The panel following Georg Kell’s speech discussed the positive aspects of both partnership driven reform and the underappreciated ​“responsibility to protect” provision that came out of the September UN World Summit. One panellist, Michael Inacker of DaimlerChrysler, said that partnerships serve a ​“lighthouse” function, serving as an example for reform. Other panellists stressed other areas that still need reform such as the Security Council and the Human Rights commission — with Lotte Leicht of Human Rights Watch saying that actually the latter had been so successful that precisely those countries who do not respect Human Rights fought to become members in order to hinder the commission’s work. Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development, Federal Republic of Germany, also spoke, reaffirming her ministry’s commitment to Public Private Partnerships and urging more German companies to join the Global Compact.

The second day was conceptualized as an open learning forum, focusing on public private partnerships as strategic investments (rather than mere philanthropic activities) for business. In his opening remarks, Wolfgang Reinicke set the tone for the day’s discussions, urging participants to take a sober look at what partnerships have accomplished and how to change the approach from a public relations to a strategic investment driven one. He also made a sketch of what this could look like, partners should ​“carefully choose areas where they can bring in their core competencies,” expect a return, measure the impact of the partnership, and move towards a risk-taking entrepreneurial mindset, instead of a public affairs one.

Jan Martin Witte then presented GPPi’s report Business UNusual: Facilitating United Nations Reform through Partnerships to participants. He presented the key findings of the report, focusing in particular on the role of local ownership as a key success factor for partnerships. In addition, he argued that partnerships can only have sustained and scalable impact if they are based on the core business competencies of each partner. A mixed panel, with participants from business, the GTZ, and international organizations, commented on the report, rising to the challenge of frankly discussing how well partnerships were working and how they could be improved. Later, participants broke up into workshops focusing on cutting-edge partnerships led by the actual practitioners involved from both the public and private sector. Here they continued the debate how to change the focus of partnerships as strategic investment, but did so while considering the hands-on partnership experiences of such people as Sarah England of the WHO and its Stop TB partnership or Susanne Meier, Director for Strategic Partnerships at Deutsche Post, who looked at her company’s experience providing support for disaster relief. 

Kurt Hoffman, President of the Shell Foundation, reiterated and expanded on many of the themes addressed throughout the conference. Painting a picture of a scene he had witnessed in Ethopia – women and girls walking along the road burdened by the loads of fire wood strapped to their backs for sale in the capital – he stressed the negative environmental, social, and economic repercussions of poverty. Using the Shell Foundation’s experience as examples, he suggested that partnerships including the private sector are an effective way to reduce poverty and push for change. In her reply, Chrlotte Streck, Director of ClimateFocus, stressed the unique role of partnerships involving the United Nations to provide the needed infrastructure for environmental programs and entrepreneurs in areas of poverty to succeed.