The social-development sector cannot thrive without partnerships. The Government, the civil society organisations and the private organisations need to work together to reach the most vulnerable populations like the socioeconomically disadvantaged. Building strong partnerships and working in the areas like poverty, food sustainability, climate change, etc. is of utmost importance for the development of a nation. This fact has been acknowledged by the UN Member States in 2015, when they considered ‘Partnerships’ as one of the Sustainable Development Goals.

SDG 17 and Global Partnerships
Sustainable Development Goals are 17 global human development goals designed to be a ‘blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.’ It includes achieving targets such as No Poverty, Zero Hunger, Good Heath & well-Being, Quality Education, Gender Equality among others^[1]. Every SDG is vital for human development and I having worked in the area of partnerships will state the importance of SDG 17 in this blog.

SDG 17 deals with achieving ‘Sustainable development through global partnerships’. Global partnerships that lead to mobilisation of resources, sharing of knowledge between nations and organisations, promoting the creation and transfer of environmentally sound technologies, and building capacity of people in developing and under-developed countries. This will lead to systematic improvement in a country’s systems and resources with maximum benefits in the areas of Finance, technology, capacity building, and trade.

Local partnerships for Impact
While it is very important that at an International level nations co-operate with each other to achieve the goals, strong partnerships between public, private and civil society organisations at local level are also equally important. The SDG 17.17 emphasizes on ‘Encouraging and promoting effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships, building on the experience and resourcing strategies of partnerships’. It acts like a backbone to get bigger organisations together for bigger impact. As per my experience, people in the eco-system do not talk about this SDG much and assume that it will be part of any solution design. The truth is unless we talk about partnerships as an important part of achieving any SDG; it will be taken up as a mere token exercise.

Our Approach
In Dr. Reddy’s Foundation, we believe in promoting SDG 17 through Collective Problem Inquiry (CPI) Model. A collective Problem Inquiry aim is to collaborate to get a better grasp of the issue and promote the sharing of leanings and experiences with the ecosystem. This also forms a part of all our work beginning from the designing phase of any solution that we work on.

Partnerships to tackle Covid-19
If we take the current Covid-19 situation, having meaningful partnerships would mean better coordination among the stakeholders to save lives of people. The lacunae in the healthcare services cannot be overcome during a pandemic but the partnership between private sector; NGOs and the Government will channel the resources efficiently. For example, with their on ground experience, the civil society can help the Government in identifying areas that needs prioritising.

Conclusion
Partnerships are crucial as no individual entity can reach out and cater to the vast needs of the entire populations by leveraging their unique advantages alone. Partnerships thereby help everyone in not just maximising reach but also in the effective use of limited resources and capabilities.

Aboli Abkari is Senior Manager – Partnerships, at Dr. Reddy’s Foundation