By their very nature of engaging with disadvantaged groups, inclusive business projects require a stronger interaction with society than typical transactional business relationships. For this to work, many require significant collaboration with non-business actors as direct implementation partners, intermediaries or knowledge providers.

In an effective partnership, each achieves their own individual objectives, while working to deliver agreed goals that they have in common. In the inclusive business portfolio, we see a range of different relationships forming to meet a range of business needs:

	Partnerships to distribute new products or services, whether business-to-business or business-to-NGO: In India, mKrishi is looking at new distribution partnerships to grow the market for its mobile-based device for farmers; Bangladeshi social enterprise, Jita is the partner of choice for many corporates keen to reach rural women consumers through Jita's aparajita network. While in Malawi, MEGA power authority is working with an NGO in developing its rural electricity distribution model
	Partnerships with NGOs to engage with farmers. The time, trust and skills needed to engage with hundreds of farmers are often found more in NGOs than in business, hence they are increasingly sought as partners by agribusiness. AfriNut, MicroVentures and Universal Industries in Malawi, and Pabna Meat in Bangladesh all tap into NGO work with farmers.
	Partnerships between large companies and small enterprises in their supply chain: Agora, aiming for rapid expansion of its retail stores in Bangladesh, is developing long-term cacity of its suppliers, so that they can grow in parallel. Similarly IAP-supported Sanergy and Zanrec invest in the small enterprise partners that operate as producers and suppliers.
	Investment partnerships: In both AfriNut (Malawi) and Jita (Bangladesh), different types of investors have come together to co-invest in a social enterprise.

Government may also be involved as a partner, whether as a core client – as for Healthstore's Child and Family Wellness clinics in Zambia, or as stakeholder with a shared interest. In Nigeria for example, government partners are involved in a public/private alliance to encourage consumers to switch to cleaner cooking fuels, which is critical to the Oandoproject.

While partnerships may often be essential, they are rarely easy. Organisations from other sectors have entirely different, public or social missions, they work to different timescales, have different responsibilities, accountabilities and cultures, are bound by different rules, and can have their own interests which may conflict – or be perceived to conflict – with commercial interests (particularly in the case of government which also has a regulatory relationship with companies).

For partnerships to be effective, they need to be properly set up to ensure that they operate efficiently and are effective in delivering both the business and the development benefits. For this, all partners need to have sufficient skills and understanding of partnership in practice, and the partnership needs to go through a robust partnering process to ensure the partners are all on the same page, issues are ironed out or at least foreseen, and the partnerships is set up for success.

IBLF's specialist programme, The Partnering Initiative (TPI), has extensive experience of helping partnerships become more effective and an excellent set of tools to help any organisation find, forge and maintain a partnership for inclusive business.TPI also supports partnerships and organizations directly as well as building capacity for partnering globally. Visit our Partnerships section in the Resource Library for more useful resources.

RELATED PROJECTS
Sanergy Slum sanitation in Kenya Sanergy aims to improve sanitation in urban slums in Kenya by designing user friendly systems to increase usage and reduce cleaning costs.			Oando Plc Clean cooking fuels Providing low-income households with affordable and clean cooking fuels through light-weight (LPG) cylinders with an integrated cooking ring.			Zanrec Plastics recycling in Tanzania This project aims to develop local infrastructure for collecting plastics and implementing recycling systems, employing local populations.
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