Working in partnerships

Partner organisations bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to project work.

Credit: WaterAid / Caroline Penn

We work through local partner organisations to directly implement projects. These local partners; usually non governmental organisations (NGOs), local government departments and sometimes private companies; undertake the direct day-to-day management of projects.

In return we offer financial support, training and technical advice as well as assistance with planning, budgeting and institutional development.

WaterAid's partners are recognised and respected locally. They have a wealth of essential skills and knowledge, ranging from speaking local dialects and knowing local customs to understanding how the government functions. They have well-established relationships with local leaders and strong links with the community, enabling then to quickly gain people's trust and confidence, as well as an ability to influence local and national decision makers. By working through partner organisations we are able operate more cost effectively than we could alone.

We support our partners and encourage them to grow. In this way, benefits become even more widespread as projects are replicated in other areas. As partners grow stronger they become less reliant on WaterAid's technical and financial support and can seek funds from other donors. For example several of our longstanding partners now receive most of their funding from other donors with more resources than WaterAid has itself. This frees up WaterAid's money to start work with new, less well-established partners and so the cycle of training and development grows.

We see this as an important long-term investment to strengthen water and sanitation organisations that, in turn, will develop their country's policies and infrastructure to help ensure that one day all people have access to safe water and sanitation.

Download the Working with Partners issue sheet ( PDF 134Kb)