Public Private Partnership (PPP) for Social Development: A South Asian Perspective

There is a growing evidence to believe that governments and NGOs have accepted reasons for 'working together as partners' and complement each other's efforts. During the last few years, South Asian states have undertaken some collaborative development interventions with a focus on health, education and income generation. As a result a number of projects with government, non-government and business organizations are functioning, but relationship among the three sectors yet to grow mature, smooth and trouble-free. Ideally, social development is a prime duty of state. However in developing countries, the importance of business and NGO sectors, and limitations of state in realizing the social ideals cannot be ignored. Each sector has immense potentialities in their respective field, such as: state can provide enabling environment and space for the other two sectors; business can solve the financial problems for the government’s agenda of development; and NGOs can implement the development agenda of government more economically, efficiently and effectively at the grass root level. The partnership for social development can be built on both the strength and weakness of the three sectors of society. For this purpose, there is a need to understand the nature, character, strengths and weaknesses of the three sectors. Relations between governments, business organizations and NGOs are complex and vary considerably from country to country. In many cases, the other two sectors have had considerable impacts on governments, either by offering models for government programmes, proposing reforms of existing policies, or criticizing proposed government policies, even to the point of organizing demonstrations or using more confrontational tactics. This paper focuses on Government-NGO-business organizations partnership, explaining the PPP practices in Pakistan and a road map in South Asian context for the three sectors to become partners for social development. An operational model has been developed to visualize the road map of PPP in South Asian context. This paper has been written with an aim to provide an insight of PPP’s theories and practices to public and private planner, researcher, NGO practitioners, local and international donors, social entrepreneurs, and social marketers. Research Methodology This theoretical research paper is an outcome of extensive search of development literature with reference to public and private organizations by exploring a number of PPP projects working in South Asia.