Partnership tools and guidelines
Working in partnership is central to our vision of a world where everyone, everywhere has access to water and sanitation. We will only achieve our vision and mission through collaborating with a wide range of partners – from governments and civil society to academia and the private sector – to improve policy and practice relating to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH).
The focus of partnerships goes beyond short-term project deliverables. We aim to strengthen the institutions, systems and capacities that are needed to deliver sustainable WASH services in the long term. To achieve this, we need to develop enabling and empowering relationships that support our partners to strengthen their capacity to deliver sustainable WASH – as articulated in our partnership framework.
We have developed a series of practical tools and guidelines to support and strengthen good partnerships:
Partnership framework
Our partnership framework defines our position, approach and programme standards in relation to our work with partners. It points to accompanying guidelines, toolkits and resources to provide more detail on how to apply the framework in practice.
Partnership toolkit
This toolkit provides practical guidance on good partnership practice that should be relevant for all staff across WaterAid. The short sections set out key considerations of partnerships, through the different phases of assessment and selection of partners, to planning projects collaboratively, monitoring and supporting partners, along with exit and transition strategies.
Guidelines on finance partnerships
These guidelines provide more detail for finance staff on how to manage risk in partnerships without being overly controlling, in a way that is relevant to the different levels of risk associated with different partners and types of partnerships
Partnership agreements and guidelines
Detailed guidance on the content and format for different types of partnership agreement that WaterAid uses, memorandums of understanding and project partnership agreements. There is also a set of specific guidelines for partnerships in projects funded by USAID, with supporting tools.
Partnership practice tools
This set of tools describes in detail different exercises that can be used to help analyse and strengthen different aspects of partnership. They are referred to in the partnership toolkit.
