Session Duration: 1.5 hours
Format: Group Simulation, Real-Time Crisis Cards, Peer Review
Once a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) has been successfully designed and launched, the next critical phase is managing and sustaining it over time. This phase extends beyond initial implementation and focuses on how the partnership operates on a day-to-day basis, how challenges are addressed collaboratively, and how the value created is preserved and scaled. Managing a PPP involves ensuring that all partners remain actively engaged, that commitments are honored, and that agreed-upon results are tracked and achieved. It also requires maintaining trust, resolving emerging tensions, and adapting to changes in the operational or political environment. Sustaining a PPP means planning for its long-term viability, whether that involves institutionalizing it within public structures, spinning it off as a private initiative, or embedding its outcomes into national policies or markets. Many PPPs fail not because of poor design, but due to weak coordination, lack of communication, misaligned expectations, or absence of a sustainability strategy.
a) Partnership Lifecycle Planning: PPPs evolve through phases: initiation, implementation, maturity, and exit. Each phase requires different management tactics. For instance, implementation needs joint monitoring, while exit requires sustainability planning. Participants will build a PPP lifecycle tracker tool tailored to their councils’ specific needs.
b) Conflict Management Mechanisms: Conflicts are inevitable. This session prepares participants to design grievance redress systems, escalation protocols, and joint review processes. Real-life case examples show how unmanaged disputes can derail otherwise successful collaborations.
c) Adaptive Partnership Management: Participants are introduced to the concept of adaptive management, which involves using real-time data and feedback to adjust project design, timelines, or responsibilities. The training includes tools like learning loops, quarterly partnership health checks, and adaptive dashboards.
d) Sustaining and Scaling Impact: To prevent PPPs from collapsing after initial funding, councils must build exit strategies, institutional buy-in, and potential for scale. This section covers how to integrate partnerships into national R&I policies, use results to attract future funding, and promote institutional anchoring.
Facilitators Notes
a) Introduce conflict resolution tools.
b) Run a “Crisis Simulation” activity to test adaptive management.
c) Emphasize sustainability beyond donor cycles.
Suggestions for Further Reading
a) Hodge, G., Greve, C., & Boardman, A. (2018). Public-Private Partnerships: The Next Generation. Routledge.
b) IFC (2017). PPP Success Stories in Emerging Markets.