Partnerships and the good-governance agenda: improving service delivery through state-NGO collaborations

Journal article

First under the Millennium Development Goals and now under the Sustainable Development Goals, partnerships for development, especially between state and NGOs, remain a valued goal. Partnerships are argued to improve provision of basic social services to the poor: the state is viewed as providing scale, with NGOs ensuring good governance. Close study of three leading partnership arrangements in Pakistan (privatization of basic health units, an ‘adopt a school’ program, and low-cost sanitation) shows how state–NGO collaborations can indeed improve service delivery; however, few of these collaborations are capable of evolving into embedded partnerships that can bring about positive changes in government working practices on a sustainable basis. In most cases, public servants tolerate, rather than welcome, NGO interventions, due to political or donor pressure. Embedded partnerships require ideal-type commitment on the part of the NGO leadership, which most donor-funded NGOs fail to demonstrate. For effective planning, it is important to differentiate the benefits and limitations of routine co-production arrangements from those of embedded partnerships.

Authors: Bano, M

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Journal: Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations
• Volume: 30
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 1270–1283
• Publication date: 2018-01-04
• Acceptance date: 2017-12-09
• DOI: 10.1007/s11266-017-9937-y
• EISSN: 0957-8765
• ISSN: 1573-7888
• Keywords: NGOs; service delivery; social sectors; development partnerships; good governance; Pakistan