Empowering the poor is a central principle in partnerships focused on bringing benefits to poor communities. The success of such a partnership is not only measured in terms of the services covered by the partnership contract: the test is also whether the partnership leaves a sustainable legacy in the community. Has it contributed to the development of social capital, skills, or new businesses, or created new opportunities for people in the community?
Stakeholder participation and the mechanisms established for creating meaningful and appropriate participation of the poor are at the core of an empowerment approach. The extent to which poor stakeholders themselves have a role in decision-making over their own development is an important indicator, and the ownership, management and operation of services are all important to empowerment. In some contexts, procurement criteria can be structured to create opportunities for small-scale providers, the unemployed and other vulnerable groups.
Inevitably, the benefits of involving the poor in the delivery process need to be balanced with the need to deliver the service efficiently and sustainably. Different private sector operators respond very differently to the involvement of communities and poor groups in construction and management. Municipalities can seek views during early discussions to see how a particular operator thinks on this issue. Selecting a sympathetic and knowledgeable operator can make a significant difference and largely determine the extent to which the partnership focuses on pro-poor ends.
Partnerships can become more focused on empowerment through the development of appropriate procurement procedures for formal private sector arrangements. For example:
• ensuring participation in all appropriate phases and activities (design, building and operation), and providing the individual and organisational capacity building necessary to do so;
• ensuring that community representatives play a role in decision-making bodies;
• promoting the participation of vulnerable groups in construction by building capacity (skills development, etc.);
• creating supportive institutional mechanisms to make it possible for them to enter into formal contracts, etc.;
• shaping employment practices to build local capacity;
• supporting the rights, conditions and compensations of employees by improving skills, training and benefits; and
• ensuring that informal service providers are empowered to take on greater roles and that they are not disempowered through expropriation of infrastructure (or put out of business through monopoly clauses).
The test for a poverty-focused partnership thus lies not only in the service it delivers, but also in whether it leaves the local communities empowered.