Creating an Enabling Private Sector Environment
With the aim of enhancing the business environment in developing countries, the BE unit works with DI’s sister organisations to enhance their capacities. The unit has collaborated with Business Membership Organisations (BMOs) in more than 30 countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, and is constantly finding and working with new partners.
The transfer of knowledge to DI’s sister organisations takes many forms. And as the work has evolved, the methodology has changed from passive to action-based learning. Within the area of policy advocacy, for instance, work is on specific policy issues with the individual BMO rather than mere theory. This approach to learning places high demands on both parties, but it also paves the road for sustainable organisational change.
The guiding principles for our work in the BE unit is:
- sustainability
- project ownership
- long term commitment
We stress the importance of sustainability and project ownership in all our projects. We work with partners who have been carefully selected on the basis of our diagnostic assessment tool. We stress the importance of financial sustainability for our partners, also after the project has terminated, and that our partners contribute with input throughout the project period which exceeds donor contributions. This approach allows us to establish a true partnership with what we consider our sister organisations.
Our Approach to Organisational Capacity Building
The unit has profound experience with implementation and project management in emerging and developing economies. Our experience tells us that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach to development work. A demand driven approach has instead been developed where we - in close cooperation with our partners - choose different areas where the partners need capacity building. Hence, our action-based learning is tailor-made to the different projects. The main areas are policy advocacy, communication, recruitment and retention of members, and member services.
A key to the BE unit’s success is that it is able to draw upon a highly skilled resource base of more than 500 expert consultants in DI. It is our experience that pairing DI’s topical experts with the receiving organisations equivalent experts is the best guarantee for efficient knowledge transfer. Besides a thorough mapping and partner choice process in our projects, our project plans involve a clear exit strategy through clearly identified project targets as well as realistic timeframes and budgets.
We are increasingly applying side-by-side training for key personnel, along with strategy seminars for different levels in the targeted organisations. Naturally we still use collective training seminars when appropriate. The training is carried out either in the receiving country or at the DI headquarters in Copenhagen.