Environ Dev Sustain (2011) 13:1933

DOI 10.1007/s10668-010-9245-9

Building capacity with demand-driven partnerships:

a case study of Partners for Water and Sanitation
Brett A. Wertz Aylara Odekova Mike Seaman

Received: 13 January 2010 / Accepted: 22 April 2010 / Published online: 9 May 2010
Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Abstract Multi-stakeholder partnerships emerged from the 2002 Johannesburg World

Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) as a new vehicle for progressing toward the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by aligning the interests of businesses, governments and civil society to leverage the impact of their interventions. The water and sanitation sector boasts the largest number of such partnerships, including the demand-driven
capacity-building partnership Partners for Water and Sanitation (PAWS), a product of the
WSSD and a premier UK partnership for sustainable development. Through its partnership
network, PAWS has access to the entire UK water industry, which they assign to capacitybuilding projects in Africa on a demand-driven basis. Though the supply of partners is
generally strong, the demand for their assistance is variable. This paper examines the
efficacy of demand-driven capacity building partnerships at achieving the water and sanitation MDGs, presenting a case study of the PAWS partnership and using it as a framework for discussion of the supplydemand dynamics that influence the scope, scale and
ultimate impact of such partnerships.
Keywords Publicprivate partnerships
Sustainable development
PAWS

Water
Sanitation
Africa
Capacity building
Knowledge transfer

MDGs
Demand-driven
WSSD
Multi-stakeholder
Tri-sector
Partnership
Readers should send their comments on this paper to BhaskarNath@aol.com within 3-months of publication
of this issue.
B. A. Wertz (&)
The Monterey Institute of International Studies, 727 Spencer St. Apt 2, Monterey, CA 93940, USA
e-mail: wertz.brett@gmail.com
A. Odekova
The Monterey Institute of International Studies, 3412 Terrace Dr. Apt 1732, Alexandria, VA 22302,
USA
e-mail: aodekova@exchange.miis.edu
M. Seaman
The Monterey Institute of International Studies, 1141 Lighthouse Ave, Pacific Grove, CA 93940, USA
e-mail: mseaman@exchange.miis.edu

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1 Introduction
Securing an adequate water supply is one of the first steps out of the poverty trap (Sachs
2005). Access to an improved water source can decrease illness, reduce inequality and
hasten economic development. The sentiment that water is life remains remarkably consistent across continents. Governments, development banks and the United Nations agree
that increasing access to water and improving its quality is a top priority. Unfortunately,
progress toward water and sanitation goals has been slow and painful. During the past three
decades, sundry strategies have been applied with only marginal success. Now, in the
second decade of a new millennium, we can reflect on publicprivate partnerships, which
were promoted at the turn of the century as a mechanism for addressing the seemingly
intractable problem of water provisioning in the developing world.
In this paper, we explore the added value of demand-driven capacity-building partnerships in the water sector and with regard to meeting the UN Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs). To achieve this, we present a case study of Partners for Water and Sanitation (PAWS) that emerged from the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable
Development (WSSD). The data we use come from a series of interviews with people
involved in the partnership as well as an examination of relevant academic literature and
partnership documents such as annual reports and newsletters. The first section of this
article untangles the terms used in partnership and capacity-building discourse. Part two
presents the case study explaining the partnerships history, operational model and supply
demand framework. The third and final section presents a discussion of the case study and
trisector partnerships more generally, examining their value added to meeting the MDGs,
their operational framework and organizational sustainability.

2 Background
2.1 Publicprivate partnerships
Partnerships are promoted as a means to address three types of deficits in sustainability
governance: regulation, implementation and participation (Biermann and Chan 2007).
Delegates to the WSSD advanced multi-stakeholder partnerships as a way for transnational
actors in the public, private and non-profit sectors to improve environmental governance by
institutionalizing a set of norms and practices (Andonova and Levy 2003). Partnerships,
described as Type II outcomes by the United Nations, represent a move toward broader,
transnational governance networks that incorporate state and non-state actors as well as
for-profit and non-profit enterprises in a solutions-oriented process (Benner et al. 2003).
Type II partnerships differ from partnerships more generally in that their goals, formalized
by the UN under the Bali Guiding Principles, are to further the implementation of Agenda
21 and the MDGs and that such partnerships follow a set of design principles including
commitments to transparency, voluntarism and an integrated approach to sustainable
development with economic, social and environmental dimensions. Throughout this article, all references to partnerships should be understood as referring specifically to type II
partnerships.
Partnerships are understood as one part of a progression toward incentive-based,
cooperative policies, and away from government regulation as public administrations, the
private sector and civil society strengthen ties and align interests (Glasbergen 2007).
Partnerships may be but are not always market-oriented, with private sector participation

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often hinging instead on an interest in corporate social responsibility, employee development and relationship building.
Publicprivate partnerships have been criticized on a number of grounds including
further complicating and fragmenting efforts at international cooperation around sustainable development; undermining existing public administration efforts by creating analogous or competing structures; and easing the burden on governments to follow through
with prior commitments (ECO-Equity 2002). They have been called the Trojan Horse of
Neoliberal Development due to typical stakeholder asymmetry and a propensity for
inequitable outcomes (Miraftab 2004). Other criticisms point out that partnership
arrangements may serve the interests of their participants instead of the public good, such
as an interest in legitimacy, profit, the delegation of responsibility or corporate social
responsibility (Glasbergen 2007).
2.2 Partnerships in the water sector
Partnerships tend to target problems selectively, clustering in sectors that have significant
and overlapping transnational interest (Andonova 2006). The water sector has by far the
largest number of partnerships registered with the UN (81), while other areas such as
biodiversity (41), gender equality (12) and air pollution/atmosphere (16) have comparatively few (UN 2009). Interest in water at the international level is high: the UN General
Assembly designated the years 20052015 as the Water for Life decade wherein countries would strive to fulfill commitments to reaching the MDGs. Meanwhile, at the 5th
World Water Forum in Istanbul, more than 33,000 attendees from 192 countries discussed
23 specific water-related topics during 111 thematic sessions (WWF 2009). Water is an
area that deserves this attention. More than 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking
water, while 2.6 billion lack access to adequate sanitation and 5 million die from waterborne illness annually (World Water Assessment Programme 2009).
Privatization became the dominant water development strategy in the 1980s and early
1990s after the perceived failure of public utilities in decades prior. Promoted by major
development banks and the UN, the strategy of relying on well-capitalized multinational
corporations to meet water and sanitation targets is now roundly regarded as insufficient
(Hall et al. 2005; Wolff and Hallstein 2005). Full government concessions to private
contractors became rarer, while partial-privatization strategies such as leases or operate
and manage contracts grew in popularity (Gleick 2006). The degree to which private
sector involvement is necessaryto provide technical, institutional and financial resourcesremains a contentious issue. The type of work carried out by publicprivate partnerships in the water sector ranges from the use and dissemination of small-scale
appropriate technologies in rural areas to sophisticated infrastructure financing schemes
(WEF 2005).
2.3 Capacity building
Agenda 21a comprehensive plan of action for sustainable development adopted by 178
governments at the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED)
states that capacity building encompasses [a] countrys human, scientific, technological,
organizational, institutional and resource capabilities (UN 1992). Participants at the
UNCED, better known as the Earth Summit, recognized capacity building as a primary
pathway to implementing Agenda 21 and reaching sustainable development goals.
Capacity building can be defined as a coordinated process of deliberate interventions to

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(1) upgrade skills (2) improve procedures and (3) strengthen organizations. Capacity
building refers to the investment in people, institutions and practices that will enable
countries to achieve their development objectives (World Bank 2009). Traditionally,
capacity building and knowledge transfer are the domain of governments and NGOs. The
private sector tends to specialize more in resource mobilization and, to a lesser extent,
service delivery (Levinger 2002). In recent years, however, publicprivate partnerships
have expanded to involve the private sector directly in capacity building activities. The
next section of this article presents a case study of one such publicprivate partnership
geared for capacity building: Partners for Water and Sanitation (PAWS).

3 Case study: partners for water and sanitation in Africa (PAWS)

3.1 Background
PAWS was one of the first organizations to register as a type II partnership with the UN.
The explicit aim of the partnership is to contribute to the MDG of halving the proportion of
people without access to safe drinking water and sanitation by 2015 (PAWS 2002). UK
Prime Minister Tony Blair and Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
(DEFRA) Margaret Beckett laid the groundwork for its formation at the 2002 WSSD. As a
UK governmentled initiative, PAWS was initially funded by DEFRA between 2002 and
2007 at which point the Department for International Development (DFID) took over.
PAWS operates by attempting to match the demand for skills and advice from African
partners with the supply of professionals in the UK water sector. UK partner organizations
provide human resources on a voluntary basis to share knowledge and technical expertise
applicable to a variety of projects, with a focus on long-term relationship building.
Examples of PAWSs capacity-building activities include but are not limited to: institutional learning, contract management, water demand management, water quality laboratory
accreditation, institutional twinning, leakage management, and institutional reform and
change management (PAWS 2008).
PAWS transfers experience and knowledge from its partners in the UK water industry
and from professionals in related fields such as construction and law to specific projects in
the four African countries of South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Tanzania. Business
partners work on a professional voluntary basis, which means that they contribute their
time pro bono and provide paid leave for employees who travel to Africa. During 2008
2009, partners contributed 410 days, compared with 210 in the previous year, to capacitybuilding activities or approximately 410,000 worth of time (PAWS 2009).
3.2 Past challenges and organizational change
Following the WSSD, PAWS began work in South Africa (the summits host country). There
a steering committee identified municipalities with the least capacity in water and sanitation
and advised PAWS to direct technical assistance to those communities. This ad hoc strategy
proved ineffective, Amina Ismail, the South African country manager said, as municipalitiesdue precisely to their low level of water and sanitation expertisecould not utilize
PAWSs offering. Ismail identified a lack of absorptive capacity in existing projects as a
barrier for PAWS. Absorptive capacity is a business administration concept that was first
defined as the ability of an organization to recognize the value of new, external information,
assimilate it, and apply it (Cohen and Levinthal 1990). In international development,

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absorptive capacity is understood as the quality of a countrys institutions and policies, which
bolster or diminish the impact of aid money (Burnside and Dollar 2004). As explained by
interviewees, a projects absorptive capacity for technical assistance is defined by the ability
of project participants to effectively accommodate additional human resources on-theground, to sufficiently understand recommendations and to be equipped to implement
changes. Thus, if projects are not designed with the potential for receiving future assistance
in mind (i.e. a lack of experts, lack of money, lack of decision-making power), they are said to
lack absorptive capacity and are unsuitable for a PAWS-style intervention.
PAWS experienced these challenges after entering Uganda in mid-2003. Ultimately,
PAWS terminated its activities there due to lack of absorptive capacity and miscommunication among in-country partners. The model that PAWS offered, which Setterfield
described as skills not money, did not work due to what he characterized as a misalignment of supply and demandthat is to say that there were too many partners chasing
too few projects. Many of the nationals PAWS communicated with worked full time for
charitable organizations and sought money to fund and initiate new projects rather than
additional human resources for existing projects. PAWS was given the impression that
Uganda simply did not need any more help (Stewart and Gray 2009). Other factors that
reduced the demand for PAWSs offering in Uganda were the increased activities of other
donors in-country and advances made by the government in its own capacity-building
projects. The steering committee decided to cease operations in Uganda in December 2007
due to what PAWS described as a gradual decline in demand (PAWS 2007).
The experience from South Africa and Uganda prompted PAWS to change its strategy
and align its assistance with national-level or regional-level capacity-building priorities
that have more support, better financing and the absorptive capacity to make the process
work. As Ismail said, PAWS now only works on projects that are already capacitated
(financed and supported by government) and all of its work is demand-driven. Interviewees
stressed that demand-driven activities were an area of focus for the partnership and that this
approach, they hoped, would lead to success.
3.3 Operational model
PAWS is governed by a chair, vice chair and 11-member steering group, which meets
quarterly (PAWS 2009). There is also a larger PAWS forum with one representative from
each of the 40 partner organizations. The forum meets annually and makes decisions on
consensus. PAWS is administered by a four-person secretariat based in Loughborough
Universitys Water Engineering and Development Centre (WEDC). Two project managers
within the secretariat communicate directly with the four country managers to locate
potential projects. Country managers, who are all nationals, are not part of the PAWS
secretariat and work from within a host organization. Ethiopian, Nigerian and Tanzanian
country managers are hosted by the non-profit WaterAid, while the South African country
manager is hosted by the Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (DWAF) (PAWS
2008).
PAWSs recent engagement with Tanzania is exemplary of their current countryselection process. PAWS representatives (led by the chair) conducted a scoping visit in
March 2009 meeting with the non-profit WaterAid, donors, the Tanzanian government and
other sector stakeholders. After presenting their model to the Ministry of Water and
Irrigation, parties agreed that PAWS could add value to activities already underway in
Tanzania, specifically by complement[ing] the national Water Sector Development

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Programme via capacity building. PAWS recruited a country manager to be based within
the WaterAid offices and scope out potential projects (PAWS 2009).
PAWSs approach to sustainable development is based on what interviewees called
demand-driven activities. In a typical demand-driven approach, planners consult with
project beneficiaries (through surveys, informal/formal political processes, community
groups, etc.) to ensure that local needs guide project design (Baietti and Abdel-Dayem
2008). More generally, the term demand-driven acts as proxy for needs-based meaning
that projects should not be undertaken without a clear request for engagement, usually in
the form of a government-backed policy. For PAWS, this means that country managers
communicate with government officials and policymakers to locate existing projects to
which PAWS can add value. The country managers develop a terms of reference (TOR) in
cooperation with the in-country partners and the secretariat, which then clarifies the scope
of work and circulates the TOR to all partners. Ismail, the South African country manager,
said that this back-and-forth between country managers and the PAWS secretariat facilitates a dialog between partners on different continents in order to place technical experts
precisely where they are demanded. See Fig. 1 for a schematic of the project process.
A typical project is embodied by the work done in South Africas Ugu District
Municipality. UK partners assisted the municipality in identifying opportunities to recycle
sewage for reuse as part of a new water efficiency plan and then prepared an implementation plan to improve management of a new water supply control center. The Ugu District
Municipality is already supported as part of DWAFs Water Services Provider support
programme. In this case, PAWS adds value to the existing project (of upgrading the water
supply control center and improving water use efficiency) by providing targeted recommendations and knowledge (PAWS 2009).
With each project, PAWS seeks to build what Vice Chair Graham Setterfield described
as a legacy of contact. In 2007, two UK partners went to Nigerias Bauchi state to assist

Fig. 1 A conceptual diagram illustrating the circular PAWS project process and partner interactions

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with a solar-powered water supply scheme conceived by WaterAid and Dass Women
Multipurpose Cooperative Union. The partners advised on technical aspects of the project
and identified barriers to expanding the scheme (lack of data on existing infrastructure,
poor water governance). The Bauchi project team then began collecting the missing data
and implementing partner recommendations, which led to infrastructure upgrades. The
partners have returned each year since 2007, and in 2009 prepared a final plan for
expansion of the solar-powered water supply scheme (PAWS 2009).
During our interviews we were repeatedly told that the four country managers are
instrumental to PAWSs success. The managers, all nationals, must operate at relatively
high level politically and have a keen understanding of the water policy landscape within
their country. Gabriel Ekanem, the Nigerian country manager, stated that having an
understanding of, and being involved in, the national water policy dialog helps ensure that
PAWSs work is in-line with a national plan and thus demand-driven. Country managers
tend to be well versed in water management, a skill that positions them to more effectively
to identify the type of capacity-building intervention that best suits a certain project.
Interviewees describe the PAWS capacity-building process as longer and more complex
than a funding intervention. Ismail said PAWSs approach requires that beneficiaries
understand exactly what PAWS partners in the UK can offerand what they cannot. It
also requires that someone identify, evaluate and ultimately select projects in-country, a
responsibility that falls to a lone country manager. It has been difficult for the partnership
to clearly articulate its offering in regions that are used to traditional development models,
which emphasize money and consultancy over capacity building, knowledge transfer and
long-term relationship building. Ismail described potential beneficiaries as skeptical that
they will receive just another piece of consultancy work.
PAWS differs from traditional financing or aid interventions. Traditional forms of aid
took root with the Marshall Plan, a post-World War II aid program for European reconstruction. Such interventions consist of financial flows, technical assistance and commodities given by the residents of one country to the residents of another country, as either
grants or loans. Traditional forms of foreign aid are criticized by economists such as
Milton Friedman, Peter Bauer and William Easterly. Bauer, a development economist and
an ardent critic of foreign aid, views aid as a transfer of resources from the taxpayer of a
donor country to the government of a recipient country, a mere subsidy from rich
countries (Bauer 1975). Friedman has argued that aid strengthens central governments,
doing more harm than good (Friedman and Friedman 1982). Easterly finds that the primary
objective of foreign aid, that of spurring economic growth, has failed (Easterly 2003).
Moreover, other critics of traditional forms of aid view it as a political tool that distorts
incentives and invites corruption. The largely ineffective policy of conditionality, or tied
aid, practiced by international donors such as the IMF and World Bank has also drawn
numerous criticisms.
3.4 Supply, demand and financing
Interviewees think of supply and demand in terms of (1) the supply of UK partners and (2)
the demand for human resources from projects. From this perspective, the supply of
partners available to provide assistance is robust. There are 26 UK business partners
involved in PAWS, including 12 of the countrys largest water companies (See Table 1).
The PAWS secretariat is comprised of members with strong ties to the UK water sector,
including the chair and vice chair, who can leverage their connections and call upon, as the
vice chair said, the resources of virtually every water company in the UK. However,

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Setterfield noted that due to a highly variable demand for their offering, some partners
rarely get the chance to act as partner, and many have yet to send any employees to Africa.
PAWSs 20072008 Annual Report notes that only nine of the 26 UK partner organizations donated time to capacity building that year (PAWS 2008).
The imbalance of supply and demand arises because it is much easier to engage UK
partners than it is to locate projects that have the absorptive capacity to benefit from
technical assistance and additional human resources. However, the supply of partners itself
is variable owing to the fact that would-be volunteers are often required to work on critical
issues in the UK, rendering them unable to travel to projects in Africa. As interviewees
noted, there are certain times of year when specific skills are unavailable since they are
demanded at home. Other explanations for this imbalance may be that partners are
involved merely for public relations purposes or that there are power imbalances within the
partnership itself. Interviewees, however, reject these notions and emphasize the demandside of the equation, asserting that as PAWS builds its reputation in target countries,
demand will increase rapidly and more partners will become involved.
Though PAWS is currently in disequilibrium (with more supply than demand), one
interviewee felt that as the model becomes better known, other countries will generate

Table 1 PAWS partners

Private sector (26)

Public/Government sector (8)

Civil society/NGO (6)

Africapractice
Anglian Water
Atkins
Bristol Water
British Water
Bournemouth & West
Hampshire Water
Demeter Utility Solutions
Limited
Develop Training Ltd
Halcrow
Information and Performance
Services Ltd
K&L Gates
Kelda Group
Mott MacDonald
Mouchel
Nomenca
North Midland Construction
Northumbrian Water
Seven Trent Water
Southern Water
South East Water
South West Water
United Utilities
Water UK
Wessex Water
WRc
Yorkshire Water

Cranfield University
DEFRA
DFID
Drinking Water Inspectorate
British Foreign &
Commonwealth Office
Environment Agency
OFWAT
WEDC

Building Partnerships for Development

Chartered Institution of Water and
Environmental Management
International Water Association
Tearfund
Unison
WaterAida
WWF

UK water utilities are identified in italics (PAWS 2009)

a

WaterAid is not identified as a partner on the PAWS website; however, country managers in Ethiopia and
Nigeria work from within WaterAid.

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projects suited to absorb PAWSs technical assistance, potentially swinging supply and
demand out of balance in the opposite direction. PAWSs own projections suggest that this
imbalance will be corrected in 2010 when they expect partners to donate more than
680 days to capacity building (PAWS 2009). Setterfield articulated PAWSs interest in
expanding to other countries in order to reach an equilibrium and utilize more of its partner
base, suggesting that the partnership may begin operating outside Africa.
Viewed from this supplydemand perspective, PAWS has focused its efforts on scaling
up demand. Country managers can be instrumental in building demand for PAWSs
offering. Since country managers act as the gateway for PAWS partners into a target
country and are the ones who identify target projects, they can build demand by scoping for
projects and educating potential beneficiaries about ways to gain from capacity building,
Ekanem said. He noted that the more connected a country manager is within the national
water policy network, the more effective they may be at building demand through education. Since the partnership views its activities within a supplydemand framework and is,
as Ismail said, focused on generating demand, the question of whether this is the appropriate approach becomes paramount. We return to questions about supply and demand in
the discussion section.
PAWS has the ability to leverage its partners in the UK to help those in need in Africa.
Despite PAWSs demand-driven model, the organization faces serious challenges due to a
lack of funding to support even a small secretariat. During the course of our interviews,
members of PAWS including the vice chair all voiced concerns over financing, which we
identify as the main challenge to the partnerships sustainability. PAWS currently receives
funding on a decreasing basis from DFID, which has agreed to fund the secretariat for
3 years during its transition out of DEFRA. DFID will offer 1.25 million in sliding-scale
funding for 3 years starting with 543,390 in 2007 (PAWS 2006).1
PAWSs current internal debate is about how to secure financing for the secretariat and
in-country operations. Though PAWS counts many large UK companies as partners,
Setterfield noted that PAWS may not be able to secure financing from them. This is
because much of the UK water industry created and financed WaterAid, a charity that is
also a partner and host of PAWSs country managers in Ethiopia, Nigeria and Tanzania.
Setterfield said that PAWS cannot be seen as competing with WaterAid for financing from
its business partners. Head of Secretariat Clare Twelvetrees said that PAWS is likely
headed for a mixed-funding future with members potentially paying subscription fees to
finance the secretariat.
Financing for projects on-the-ground comes from the target government. This configuration stems from the fact that PAWS attempts to work within existing national initiatives
on well-supported projects to which they can add value as demanded. Ismail said that most
of the projects that PAWS participates in are national projects already supported by
government. Though project financing comes directly from the target project, that money is
often culled from pots of development aid or from the target government itself. As
Twelvetrees said, it is not straightforward. See Fig. 2 for an illustration. Indeed, much of
the financing for type II partnerships such as PAWS that emerged from the WSSD is not
from new sources but rather more than 80 percent is originated from governments (Hale
1

In 20082009, PAWS received 373,000, of which it allocated 27% (97 K) to South Africa, 21%
(79 K) to Ethiopia, 20% (75 K) to Nigeria, 16% (61 K) to management and governance, 6% (23 K) to
fundraising, 6% to communications (24 K) and 4% (14 K) to Tanzania. Funds that are allocated to
specific countries are for in-country staff salaries and related expenses and also for the flights and
accommodations of UK partners.

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and Mauzerall 2004). This suggests that business and civil society partners, though participating more in sustainable development activities, are not providing additional money.
3.5 Public relations and external communication
Setterfield told us that PAWS now recognizes public relations as an increasingly important
strategy for establishing credibility, raising awareness, attracting new sources of financial
support and ultimately scaling up demand. Each of these areas, he said, is important to
ensuring sustainability of the partnership on all levels. Country managers stressed the need
for better awareness of partnership benefits as a means to generate demand and expressed
hope that this article itself could draw attention to PAWSs approach and help with
demand. Business partners, too, are aware of the lack of demand for their assistance, and
Setterfield said they have expressed concern that they are uninvolved or under-involved in
the partnership.
PAWS now counts Africapractice, a UK-based communications consultancy promoting
responsible investment and development in Africa, as a partner. PAWS hopes to use
Africapractices network to increase visibility and enhance awareness of its offering.
Camilla Flatt, Head of Corporate Citizenship Practice for Africapractice, said that though
internal communication is a challenge with any partnership, external communication is
particularly important in a strategic sense for PAWS, both to differentiate itself in an
increasingly crowded water and sanitation arena and to set itself apart from other partnerships through branding and competitive positioning.

4 Discussion
PAWS is a unique vehicle for approaching sustainable development goals in the water and
sanitation sector. As a multi-stakeholder partnership, PAWS embodies the recent international shift toward cross-sector collaboration and represents the international communitys best hopesarticulated at the WSSDwith regard to the governance of sustainable
development. We find PAWS to be a pioneering organization that has proven itself nimble,
adaptable to challenges and willing to experiment with its model. More fundamentally, the

Fig. 2 A diagram showing financial flows related to the PAWS project process. Lines with arrows indicate
financial flows while those without indicate relationships

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partnership has had a positive impact in the water and sanitation arena and made progress
to reaching the MDGs.
Evaluating an organization that engages in capacity building is difficult. As an activity,
there are few a metrics by which to measure the success of capacity building initiatives.
One could quantify the number of professionals trained or the total amount of trips taken
by business partners to Africa. But even with these statistics, it would be quite difficult to
say with any precision the number of people who now have improved access to water
thanks to PAWSs work. For example, policy reforms and institutional changes initiated by
PAWS at the national level may have little effect on reducing water scarcity today but may
ultimately contribute to that goal in the long run by ensuring a strong policy environment
able to facilitate progress and absorb additional external support.
Instead of evaluating PAWS against quantifiable water and sanitation metrics, we use
the case as a framework for discussing trisector capacity building partnerships in water and
sanitation more generally. What value do these types of partnerships add to concurrent
efforts toward reaching water and sanitation MDGs? How does PAWS differ from traditional aid models? Is the supplydemand framework a good way to approach capacity
building from a partnership standpoint? What steps should be taken to ensure organizational sustainability?
4.1 Value added
Capacity building partnerships such as PAWS contribute to reaching water and sanitation
MDGs by building technical and managerial expertise among groups and within projects
that have both the desire and capacity to absorb assistance. Desire here means that
capacity building takes place within a project context explicitly supported by the target
countrys policies. This ensures that projects have the financial and political wherewithal to
be sustained in the long term, that partners can return to the project in the future and that
the capacity built contributes to reaching a critical mass past which additional interventions
become unnecessary. Indeed, capacity building efforts in water and sanitation may be for
naught if government priorities shift or if beneficiaries are improperly positioned to
leverage their new training due to lack of financing, access or relationships. By avoiding
duplication of efforts and competition, PAWS achieves greater efficiency. Stewart and
Gray call this capacity building within existing governance structures which provide[s]
the necessary skills to individuals and organizations to enable them to function more
effectively and efficiently in their given role, and to ensure that improvements are sustained once donor organizations leave (Stewart and Gray 2009).
PAWS also adds value by facilitating the development of international networks and
relationships among professionals in the water and sanitation sector. By treating sustainable development as a reciprocal process rather than a problem to be solved through
consultancy, PAWSs interventions establish a precedent for dialog and cooperation while
promoting long-term, target-led relationships among partners from government, business
and civil society that share the same goal. Considering the slow progress toward water and
sanitation goals over the past decades, cross-sector international network building may be
an important first step toward future cooperation on larger and more sophisticated projects
that go beyond capacity building. In this sense, PAWS helps establish trust, align goals and
generate long-term commitments between parties that may have had trouble working
together in the pasta function that was overlooked in previous models for water and
sanitation in the developing world.

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This case study shows that PAWS is also cost-effective. Increasing access to water and
sanitation is expensive due to the high capital requirements of constructing and maintaining complex infrastructure such as dams, water-treatment facilities, pipelines, reservoirs, canals and pumping stations. Employing foreign staff to build and operate this
infrastructure further escalates costs. PAWS, however, has a staff of just five people within
its secretariat who act as the coordinating mechanism between partners on different continents, both of which are already financed. UK partners contribute time on a voluntary
basis to an African project with secure financing. This means that PAWS costs very little
and yet can add significant value.
4.2 Supplydemand framework
Though interviewees repeatedly termed PAWS a demand-driven partnership and cited
lack of demand and demand scalability as primary challenges, we must ask: is PAWS
not a supply-driven partnership? Indeed, there is no shortage of supply of UK partners, and
it is these partners and the secretariat that created PAWS and now want to drum up demand
for their offering. This factthat supply and demand are in disequilibriumhowever, does
not make interviewees assertions that PAWS is a demand-driven partnership any less
valid. What makes an enterprise supply-driven or demand-driven is the motivations and
operational model of the enterprise itself. In PAWSs case, capacity building interventions
are not initiated unless specific demand-side criteria (project is financed, supported by
high-level policy and has expressed interest in capacity building) are met. Thus, it is
appropriate to view PAWS as a demand-driven partnership. This is how PAWS views
itself, and it has appropriately focused on generating more demand in order to expand its
reach and impact.
Generating demand essentially means locating projects with more absorptive capacity.
The more of these projects that exist, the easier it is for PAWS to come on board and add
value. Recall the situation in South Africa following the WSSD when PAWS began by
targeting municipalities with the least amount of capacity. That strategy failed because
there was no way for projects to utilize additional human resources in the form of partners.
PAWS has since refined its strategy, but locating projects with appropriate absorptive
capacity has not become easier since this capacity must be built into a project from its
outset. The situation is akin to utilizing volunteers: there is an initial investment required to
even work with them.
Thus, PAWS should work with governments to craft policies that ensure those projects
that stand to benefit from additional human resources and technical assistance have
absorptive capacity built-in. This might take the form of an increased project budget or of
additional skilled personnel, but the goal, for PAWS, is to encourage governments to
design projects with an eye toward incorporating outside professionals in the future. The
ultimate result of efforts to increase absorptive capacity among projects is that a new
pathway opens for those with water and sanitation skills to interface with projects in the
developing world.
The supplydemand framework is an appropriate way for PAWS to view its activities.
This framework emphasizes deficiencies in projects and a lack of appropriate projects as
limiting factors. Thus, PAWS focuses its attention on locating projectswherever they
may be foundby utilizing its country managers and better communicating its offering.
The partnership has not yet focused on building-in absorptive capacitywhich may
require an advocacy role with both donor and recipient governmentsthough this is a
logical next step given the supplydemand framework. The result is that PAWS now

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operates in four countries (not counting Uganda, which it left) and is interested in further
expansion. Were PAWS to focus more on convincing governments and donors to build-in
absorptive capacity expansion to new countries might become unnecessary.
4.3 Organizational sustainability
In order to increase funding, PAWS can create a partnership fund, a for-profit subsidiary or
impose membership or subscription fees on partners. In other words, PAWS needs to
capitalize on its members and use existing partners to expand resources. Recently,
donorsindividual and institutionalare thinking more like investors and expecting
higher returns on their social investments (Austin 2007). We recommended that PAWS
shift to this new mind-set and treat its donors and partners as investors. As such, they will
need to learn how to value their activities and assess the financial benefit they bring to an
existing project. One way to do this is to enhance the monitoring and evaluation function of
the partnership.
As a partnership, PAWS should view impactrather than organizational growth or
revenue increasesas the primary metric of success. This is the metric that outsiders and
potential financiers will judge the partnership by. But as Vice Chair Setterfield noted, it can
be difficult to create any key performance indicators for quantitatively measuring
capacity building impact, since much of the work is qualitative and rooted in relationships,
training and knowledge transfer. Though the partnership does measure days worked (an
input), Setterfield noted that the partnership should focus more on outputs. He said that
presently the steering committee has simply review[ed] each project [to] see whether we
are fulfilling the needs of the country we are in. Many discussions within PAWS have
focused on how to generate more revenue to sustain the partnership, and which countries
the partnership should expand to, rather than on how to create concrete evaluation metrics.
PAWS should develop ways to document the results of their most concrete objectives
by implementing a systematic monitoring and evaluation function within the partnership.
There are quick and low-cost ways to measure impact without compromising the value of
an evaluation, such as the rapid appraisal method. This action will contribute to
accountability, serve as a learning tool and help attract more robust financing from both
internal and external parties.
4.4 Strengthening the partner network
In addition to developing ways to document results of their work, PAWS needs to find
ways to showcase that work. The first step is to develop a branding strategy. This action
will force PAWS to focus on the clarity of their identity, values and message.
PAWS may need to focus less on expanding into new countries and more on cultivating
its existing network. We recommend that PAWS concentrate on enhancing the value and
influence of each partners experience. Partners in the UK water sector benefit from
working in Africa, and this volunteer work is considered part of their own organizational
capacity building. One challenge will be to identify whether the experience gained is
adding real value to partners in the UK water sector, not just in Africa. When companies
evaluate the performance of a project, they need not only question Is this project doing
something good for others? but also Is this project doing something good for us? There
is great potential in this line of reasoning. If a company wants their employees to gain
valuable experience, they will want them to work on challenging and diverse projects and
gain skills to bring back to the company. This may help justify the expense incurred by UK

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partners, may encourage those partners to contribute to a partnership fund or pay a subscription fee and may also have the added benefit of enhancing projects themselves.
PAWS needs to strengthen existing contacts as well as engage and diversify new
audiences. In order to achieve ambitious goals such as diversification of audiences, PAWS
may need to have a more equal balance of partners, which could aid in generating additional demand and ensuring legitimacy. We recommended PAWS partner with more
community-based organizations that have on-the-ground knowledge and deep relationships
in Africa, particularly with regional and national governments. This network approach will
forge long-term partnerships with project-oriented organizations that can benefit from the
robust supply of UK partners.

5 Conclusion
As noted above, the two greatest challenges for PAWS in the future are securing funding
and utilizing their entire partner base. Uncertain as it may be, the future holds promise for
PAWS. Current projects seem successful, and the challenges mentioned by the country
managers related primarily to demand, exposure and scaling. Funding is nearly always a
challenge in multi-stakeholder partnerships, and recent fluctuations in the global financial
system only complicate matters. Our interviews and research were conducted in the spring
of 2009 during the depths of the economic crisis, and its implications were rarely far from
the conversation.
Monitoring PAWS financial situation will be fairly straightforward, as will monitoring
the demand for PAWS projects and partners. No one knows how the financial crisis will
affect aid and development, but financing will surely remain difficult. There may be
months of lag or even years before the trickle down effects of the crisis are felt, especially
as related to water and infrastructure. A new or revised model may be called for, but
continued monitoring and evaluation, enhanced branding and external communication, and
strengthening of the partner network will guide continued success.
Acknowledgments This article grew out of research conducted for a course titled PublicPrivate Partnerships for Sustainable Development taught by Dr. Lyuba Zarsky at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. Amer Barghouth provided extraordinary assistance during the initial stages of research that
contributed significantly to this article. Our many thanks to both Dr. Zarsky and Mr. Barghouth as well as
the PAWS staff who facilitated this research, particularly Ms. Clare Twelvetrees.

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