Accenture Development Partnerships
Insights into the role of technology in
addressing development challenges
The ability to scale and
replicate technological
programs will enable the
greatest impact
Authors:
Jessica Long, Accenture Development Partnerships
NetHope
Chapter 5
The ability to scale and replicate technological
programs will enable the greatest impact
From pilots to scale: new models of partnering,
financing and operating are needed to help realize
the potential reach and impact of new technologies.
To assess technology’s role in the developing world, Accenture
Development Partnerships and NetHope surveyed four key
stakeholder groups: non-governmental organizations (NGOs),
foundations, private sector firms, and government officials.
Working across 13 geographies, they engaged with nearly 300
business decision makers, 25 international non-governmental
organizations, and 20 thought leaders.
As development groups contemplate the best way to
promote adoption of new technologies in emerging markets,
one of the key considerations is how to fund successful
projects so that they are not only self-sustaining, but
can also be scaled and deployed in other countries. As a
result, new types of financing are being designed, including
partnerships, impact investments and special bonds that
bring the private sector into development finance.
According to the research, 84 percent of non-governmental
organization (NGO) leaders believe that partnering with the
private sector for technology projects is extremely valuable.
However, reality is a little different; only about 50 percent of
respondents in the survey reported having actually partnered
with a local or international private sector company to date.
And it’s not just new financing that will help technology and
the development programs that rely on its application, to
spread in emerging markets. Alternative operating models and
new ways of working, such as cross-sector partnerships, are
required. A growing number of non-profits and foundations
are adopting corporate business practices that aim to achieve
“for-profit” concepts such as break-even during a project’s
life cycle stages, with metrics and rigorous monitoring
approaches utilized to enable effective execution.
At the same time, the survey of 293 private sector business
leaders on the issue of partnerships in the developing world
showed that 57 percent have partnered with a local private
sector company, while 49 percent said they had partnered with
a remotely based private sector company. Far from partnering
exclusively with other private sector firms, however, cross-sector
partnerships are also evident. Globally, 38 percent of private
sector respondees said they had partnered with a public sector
agency, and 34 percent with NGOs. Only 22 percent said they
had partnered with an aid donor or a foundation.
Partnerships with private sector companies to engage consumers is common; partnerships with charities,
donors and foundations less so.
When it comes to partnerships aimed at developing or executing
engagements with consumers in developing countries, only
African and Asia Pacific business leaders were more likely to
have partnered with local governments than the global average.
North American business leaders were more likely to partner
1. Private sector companies based locally
2. Private sector companies based remotely
3. Local governments
4. Public sector agencies
5. NGOs
6. Remote governments
7. Donors and foundations
8. Charities
with private sector companies, both local and remote, or with
NGOs. A huge majority of South American business leaders had
partnered with a local private business (80 percent). The highest
proportion of business leaders to have partnered with an NGO
were African business leaders—47 percent had already done so.
57
Overall
Asia Pacific
Europe
North
America
South
America
Africa
1.
57
68
43
47
80
67
2.
49
57
36
51
60
47
3.
42
50
37
39
33
53
4.
38
37
40
44
27
33
5.
34
37
19
43
33
47
6.
24
33
25
23
13
10
7.
22
17
27
21
10
30
8.
21
14
14
28
23
37
49
42
38
34
24
22
21
2
Creating sustainable funding to achieve scale
NGOs and development agencies have long sought out
alternative financing methods that can support greater scaling
of successful projects and expansion of successful models into
other countries. The challenge in working with traditional grantmaking funders is that once the grant is used up, the program
funding is gone. However, an investment approach in conjunction
with the private sector—using classic “for-profit” methods—
can provide sustainable funding streams that will enhance the
chances of a program expanding beyond its initial footprint.
“People too often don’t think about scale from the very
beginning, but it is essential if we are to quickly improve the lives
of millions,” says Maura O’Neill, former chief innovation officer
for the U.S. Agency for International Development. “Howard
Shultz, CEO Starbucks didn’t think about just building one village
shop but rather he imagined thousands of coffee bars from the
beginning. We need to think about scale and long-term financing
from the start while also relentlessly testing for results.”
The idea here isn’t necessarily that all projects must scale from
the beginning. Rather, a reasonable screening criteria may be
that the idea has to have the potential to scale and any planning
should not only focus on developing an idea, but also proving
the concept prior to fully committing funds. With this approach,
scarce resources are preserved and can be targeted towards the
ideas with the greatest chances of success.
One innovative method of financing new development is through
cooperation between governments and the private sector.
The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), the US
government’s development agency, mobilizes private capital by
providing guarantees for development financing. OPIC makes
investments that most other private investors would not risk,
catalyzing private sector capital to enter emerging markets.1
OPIC recently provided a $21.5 million loan guarantee to Bank
Andara, a major wholesale microfinance lender in Indonesia,
to support a local currency loan from Citibank Indonesia to
Bank Andara. Founded in 2008 by the international NGO Mercy
Corps, Bank Andara is known for its technological innovation.
In 2011, Bank Andara launched the world’s first mobile
microfinance payment services platform, called AndaraLink.
With 400 microfinance institutions participating, the AndaraLink
network allows clients to send both domestic and international
remittances, as well as pay monthly bills.2
Another funding innovation is impact investing, which is
designed to create a positive social and environmental impact
while at the same time producing market rates of return for
investors. Impact investing has garnered huge success over
the years and there are now more than 200 registered impact
investing funds. A 2012 study by The Rockefeller Foundation
found that the number of projects financed by impact investing
had grown to $4 billion, double the previous year’s total.3
Accion began as a grassroots community development initiative
in 22 shantytowns in Venezuela, and has grown to become
one of the world’s largest microfinance organizations, active in
Asia, Latin America, Africa and the US. Accion established the
Frontier Investment Group as an impact investing fund to invest
in disruptive technologies in the developing world.4 Frontier
has invested in such companies as Zoona, a mobile payments
business in Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, that offers a
range of products to move money electronically.
Under the impact investing umbrella, one promising new group
of products is social impact bonds (SIBs), which bring together
non-profits, governments and private investors to raise private
investment capital to fund development projects. The world’s first
SIB was launched in 2010 by Social Finance (UK), which raised
$8 million from 17 investors to fund a comprehensive program
for re-entry into the community for short-sentenced prisoners
leaving Peterborough Prison in England over a six-year period.5
SIBs shift the financial risk to private investors, and can be
structured to attract a wide range of risk appetites, such as
institutional investors and charitable foundations of high-networth individuals. SIBs will likely move from a deal-by-deal
approach to more of a portfolio approach, allowing investors to
diversify risks by investing in basket of development projects,
and ultimately increasing the attractiveness of such investment.
Working together: cross-sector partnerships
One excellent illustrative example is how Mercy Corps brought
together a bank and an agricultural research center in the
Philippines to help address local farmers’ need for advice about
increasing crop yields, techniques to improve profits, and
ways to qualify for banking services to manage their finances.
BPI Globe BanKO, founded in 2011, is the first mobile-based,
microfinance wholesale savings bank in the Philippines. In
addition to banking services made available through mobile
phones, customers making their living from farming can get
access to advice from the International Research Institute
about fertilizer and crop management techniques.6
Another interesting partnership involves the Nigerian National
Identity Commission and MasterCard Incorporated. A pilot
project in the West African nation has distributed 13 million
identity smart cards which also have the ability to be used
for electronic payments. The program is a collaborative
effort by the government, MasterCard, a US-based credit
card processing firm, a Nigerian card processing firm, and
eight banks. It demonstrates a means for safe access to
financial services by people at the bottom of the pyramid.7
As the NetHope and Accenture Development Partnerships’
research shows, partnerships are happening, but perhaps
not at the scale anticipated.8 Private sector organizations
still tend to stick with their private sector peers when
it comes to executing engagement with consumers
in developing markets and more needs to be done to
encourage effective cross-sector partnerships.
“My sense is that there are not a lot of partnerships between
for-profit businesses and private foundations,” says Patrick
Collins, chief information officer of the Hewlett Foundation.
“We do collaborate with lots of other foundations, including
3
corporate foundations. Our belief is that foundations ought
to collaborate more deeply, for example by agreeing on
such things as grantmaking strategies. We are doing this
in a few key areas but what you find is that it is really hard
to initiate and sustain these deeper collaborations.”
At the same time, however, there are opportunities that
come from private-to-private sector partnerships that
should be leveraged. The rise of the social intrapreneur—a
change agent within a corporate environment—can have
huge implications for addressing development challenges.9
As new innovative financing techniques demonstrate, the
old ways of doing things—business to consumer, non-profit
to beneficiary, government to citizen—will have to adapt
and change to realize the full potential of technologies in
emerging markets. There will be new models that challenge
traditional roles of business, non-profits and governments,
which will be important for achieving scale and replicating
technology-enabled solutions in emerging markets.
Discussion and action points
• New financing models are not the only solution
to help spread technology in emerging markets.
Alternative operating models and new ways
of working, such as cross-sector partnerships,
are required to take projects to scale. How
can we encourage more effective cross-sector
partnerships to address development challenges?
• What are the barriers to successful partnerships?
• Are there means to build and grow trust to
encourage successful partnerships?
• What does—or will—the most effective partnership
look like? Can it be defined or will it be unique to
each development challenge?
“In order for more successes to happen, the overall ecosystem
needs to evolve. Many efforts to date have been both
duplicative and poorly funded.” says Ann Mei Chang, chief
innovation officer at Mercy Corps. “I’d like to see funders
and implementers come together to invest in platforms,
infrastructure, and shared resources that can be leveraged across
solutions. This will dramatically reduce the cost of each new
deployment, result in better integration and interoperability,
and enable higher quality, more scalable solutions.”
4
This chapter is the last in the series that has looked at
the different ways technology is being deployed in the
developing world. It has drawn on the insights of our global
surveys of 293 private sector business leaders across Asia
Pacific, Europe, North America, South America and Africa,
25 non-profit leaders, as well as in-depth interviews
with thought leaders across the development sector.
www.accenture.com/technologyindevelopment
Research Methodology
Private sector survey
• 293 business decision makers were interviewed online
across 13 markets between 4 February and 4 March 2013.
• Business decision-makers (BDMs) were identified as managers
working in companies that have $10 million or more in revenue
and more than 100 employees; have significant influence or
decision-making responsibilities for strategy or marketing in a
developing and/or emerging market(s); and work in one of the
following five sectors: financial services, resources and energy,
consumer goods, agri-business or health.
Public sector survey
• 25 non-profit leaders from international NGOs were
interviewed online during February and March 2013.
In-depth interviews
• In-depth interviews with conducted with
thought leaders across the development sector
between February and April 2013.
Region
Market
Number of interviews
Asia Pacific
Australia
25
China
25
India
26
UK
21
Italy
15
France
15
Germany
15
Russia
15
US
46
Canada
30
Brazil
15
Mexico
15
South Africa
30
Europe
North America
South America
Africa
Total:
76
81
76
30
30
293
5
References
About Accenture Development Partnerships
1http://www.opic.gov/who-we-are/overview
Accenture Development Partnerships collaborates with
organizations working in the international development sector
to help deliver innovative solutions that change the way people
work and live. Its award-winning business model enables
Accenture’s core capabilities—its best people and strategic
business, technology and project management expertise—to be
made available to clients in the international development sector
on a not-for-profit basis.
2 http://www.opic.gov/press-releases/2012/citi-opic-andbank-andara-support-rapid-growth-microfinance-sectorindonesia-185
3http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-exploringvalue-proposition-impact-sourcing.aspx
4http://www.accion.org/what-we-do/investing/frontier
5https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/
attachment_data/file/162352/peterborough-social-impactbond-assessment.pdf.pdf
6http://www.mercycorps.org/press-room/releases/mercycorps-partners-bpi-globe-banko-extend-mobile-bankingone-million-people
7http://newsroom.mastercard.com/press-releases/
mastercard-to-power-nigerian-identity-card-program/
8http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insightinternational-development-converging-wor
9https://www.ashoka.org/
Authors
Jessica Long - Accenture Development Partnerships
NetHope
About NetHope Inc
NetHope is a new-generation collaboration of over 40
international leading NGOs representing $40 billion of
disaster response, human development and conservation
programs in more than 180 countries. The organization
facilitates public-private collaboration among leading NGOs,
technology corporations, private foundations and public
sector organizations. Together, they leverage technology
to better serve millions of end beneficiaries around the
world. For more information, visit www.nethope.org
About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology
services and outsourcing company, with approximately 281,000
people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining
unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all
industries and business functions, and extensive research on the
world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with
clients to help them become high-performance businesses and
governments. The company generated net revenues of US$28.6
billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2013. Its home page is
www.accenture.com.
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