by Priya Bapat, Humanitas Global Development
Above, left to right: Michael T. Duke, President and CEO, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.; Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary-General, United Nations; Jim Yong Kim, President, World Bank Group; Bill Clinton, Former President of the United States and founder of the Clinton Foundation
Yesterday afternoon, President Clinton concluded the most highly-covered and high-profile CGI meetings of the last five years. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of CGI is not only the diversity of countries, ethnicities and religions represented, but the diversity of professions and expertise. Unlike many development conferences, CGI includes the participation of prominent leaders from not only the political and development worlds, but also private sector leaders, academics, media, designers and more.
The potential for convening these leaders together is best represented through CGI 2012's committment portfolio. At each CGI meeting, President Clinton unveils a number of new initiatives to tackle existing challenges in our world. These initiatives typically involve a collaboration between multiple sectors at the highest of levels. These collaborations demonstrate how all sectors can use their resources and expertise together to create stronger, more effective programs.
One such committment comes from Moody's, the credit rating company; Grameen Bank; Deutsche Bank; and a mix of microfinance organizations (Women's World Banking, BlueOrchard, The MIX Market, and ImpAct) to develop a scorecard and standardized ratings system for microfinance institutions along with accompanying tools and research. Support from larger, more established credit companies and banks will help provide the smaller, more resource-strapped microfinance institutions to develop better, more standardized systems.
Another example of a multi-sectoral committment is on providing next generation technology to frontline healthworkers in Kenya. The initiative involves both NGO (IntraHealth International, Medic Mobile, the African Medical and Research Foundation, and Avallain Africa) and private sector (Intel, IHUB and SafariCom) partners with different types of expertise in health, education and technology. The organizations will work in partnership with the Kenyan government to update skills and knowledge for healthcare workers in remote and underserved areas to enable them to use the most current and effective technologies and create a stronger healthcare system.
CGI's ability to convene leaders in different sectors in one setting to discuss and highlight multi-sectoral programs is an important one. While multisectoral partnerships are certainly viewed as important, collaborations are not as integrated and meaningful as they could be. Often in development, initiatives start in one arena - NGOs, academia or the private sector - and don't seek to involve input from other sectors until the initiative is ready to launch. In order for multi-sectoral partnerships to have the most impact, they must be designed, implemented and championed by all partners so that there is a sense of ownership from all parties. Although often more complex, these types of initiatives can help create more robust, well-informed and better designed development interventions.
