Over recent decades, grassroots organisations, governments and local and international donors have learnt a vast range of lessons about poverty and poverty reduction. These lessons are essential to the development of more effective and sustainable poverty reduction programmes, policies and pilots. It is not the purpose of this book to dwell on detailed lessons; the goal here is to consider how partnerships can be focused and how to optimise the contribution of a PPP.
To this end, the following discussion focuses on six key lessons: community participation; capacity building; integrated (multisectoral) poverty reduction responses; as well as the importance of understanding variability and diversity; gender marginalisation and enhancing existing assets. It describes the lessons learnt to date, and asks whether these have been or can be taken into the arena of private sector participation. Accompanying this text are boxes illustrating the tools and techniques that can assist in this process.