Towards new partnerships and funding sources for development cooperation in HE

Financial crisis

For many parties, participation in development cooperation programmes has historically mainly depended on the availability of programme funds from traditional sponsors such as government ministries. However, budget cuts by these sponsors, forced by the current financial crisis, have clearly demonstrated the need for cooperating partners to diversify the funding sources for their activities even more.

Sustaining development cooperation activities without relying solely on direct cash flows is possible. However, it will require the forging of new and innovative partnerships in previously unthought-of terrains. This blog summarises a few ideas on this, with specific regard to institutional cooperation that is aimed at capacity building of the HE sector in developing countries.

Modernisation of HE in developing countries

I once heard someone say that students need to learn what is relevant to their future opportunities. This involves acquiring skills, knowledge and attitudes that raise their competitiveness in a globalised and technologically advanced world. To achieve this, education institutions in developing countries need learning environments that are challenging and technologically sound.

International cooperation can support modernisation of HE in developing countries and increase its scope. Achieving these objectives partly requires:

• capacity building for (technical) teaching staff, especially in courses that are currently not given but are needed in the local labour markets;
• curricula development, especially of courses that are currently not given but are needed in the local labour markets;
• upgrading of workshops and laboratories and stocking of (non)disposable supplies for technical courses which are currently under-resourced and are relying on theory, but in which practical skills are essential.

Making links to CSR

Cooperating HE institutions can achieve part of these objectives by building partnerships with the private sector. Many international enterprises have committed to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in their business model and could be open to collaboration within this context, in the countries in which they also operate.

For instance, manufacturing companies often have access to surplus (non)disposable supplies which could be donated to education institutions whose training capacity is being developed in a relevant field.

To avoid donating white elephants, such assistance would need to be given to specifically identified courses and curricula in which the capacity building activities are taking place. The donated resources would also have to be chosen on the basis of their relevance to the capacities being developed. Short-term technical assistance on how, when and where to apply the donated resources can additionally be given to teaching staff and students at participating HE institutions.

Linking to PPPs

Many of these companies are also involved in Public-Private partnerships (PPPs). Charity is of less sentiment in PPPs than in CSR and so companies involved in PPPs are also interested in receiving considerable benefits for their involvement.

International companies involved in PPPs, but which do not have an explicit CSR policy, can still contribute to capacity building in HE in developing countries. Their involvement can be the same as those with an explicit CSR policy, but they could request return benefits such as consultancy work by the student and staff of the cooperating education institutions.

In the Netherlands, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has set aside a budget of €275 million for the next 5 years in which PPPs will be supported to contribute to achieving food security and developing water management capacities in developing countries. HE institutions involved in capacity building in these two fields can make major contributions to achieving these aims, if given the chance to participate in these coalitions.

Linking to open innovation

In developed nations, technological developments are far ahead of those in developing countries and some of the spin-off technologies could very well be useful for the private sector development needs of developing countries.

However, modifying technologies for the Southern context requires research and testing. International cooperation in HE which focuses on developing research capacity can forge new and beneficial partnerships with relevant companies interested in open innovation.

During their research and development activities, most companies stumble upon new technologies or solutions which are not directly applicable to their own market, but which could be useful to the market of another company.

In open innovation, instead of discarding these inventions or not using them, companies sell or donate the ideas to relevant and interested firms or individual entrepreneurs in the private sector who then take the idea, directly apply it or further develop or modify it for their own market.

The spin-off products from one company are, therefore, used as input in another, thereby supporting the growth of the private sector and innovation in general, and providing solutions to secondary markets. This also generates income for the mother company instead of having the products just gather dust on shelves.

Partnerships between such companies and HE institutions cooperating in research capacity building can involve technical assistance to the education institutions, whereby teaching staff and students acquire R&D capacities during joint modification of a given technology or idea. The potential for application of open innovation in research capacity development in both developing and emerging economies is very high.

Linking to Expert programmes

In the Netherlands, development cooperation is also occurring through networks of experts such as PUM (Programma Uitzending Managers) and SharePeople. This cooperation is currently company-to-company, but has potential for being extended to cover the HE sector as well.

PUM and SharePeople send senior experts in all sectors of the economy to developing countries on a voluntary and short-term basis. The experts advise businesses and institutions which have a need for knowledge, expertise and experience to solve an actual problem for which they themselves do not have the resources or expertise to solve.

Within this particular example, HE institutions in the Netherlands involved in development cooperation projects with reference to capacity building could consider sending a student along with an expert each time that an expert visits a given country to assist with a particular problem. This way the visiting student gains skills in a developing country, learning from a senior expert and working on an actual problem in a new context.

While in the host country, the visiting expert and student team could be paired up with a local student and teacher team at an associated HE institution. This would maximise knowledge transfer. The sending of students along with senior experts through such networks could be limited to the disciplines relevant to the courses in which educational cooperation is taking place. This would maximise impact for the course being developed.

The way to go

Extension of PPP, CSR and open innovation activities to the field of HE is new, but very useful in supplementing the resources needed for capacity development in HE within the context of development cooperation. This is particularly useful in times of financial crisis when cash flows weaken.