Government Series Blog #1

Laying the Groundwork: A Strategic Approach to Government Engagement

Welcome to the first installment of our blog series on Bridges to Prosperity’s (B2P) approach to building meaningful government partnerships. These collaborations are at the core of our mission to advance rural connectivity and empower communities through transformative infrastructure. In this series, we’ll explore B2P’s strategies for engaging governments in new geographies and established programs across Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Zambia. From generating strong alliances to creatively implementing shared objectives and collaboratively envisioning the future, we’ll uncover how these partnerships drive impact for millions of people.

Starting from the Ground Up: Research and Relationship Building

Let’s start from the beginning. How do we initially engage government stakeholders and explore potential partnership? We begin with research – desk and field – ? to understand the country’s historical, current, and trending priorities, and answer a handful of key questions.

Key documents like strategies, plans, policies, and budgets from the national, ministerial, and local government levels anchor the exploration, and conversations with key stakeholders on the ground help uncover nuance, as well as emerging issues.

In parallel, we’re also connecting to communities and local leaders and doing on-the-ground assessments of bottlenecks in rural transport networks to understand the needs and the context across the country. This helps us gain a sense of regional differences, trends in technology needs, and priorities for initial investments.

Co-Creating Solutions: Leveraging Tools and Expertise

Within these explorations and conversations, we build a picture of the country’s unique context and start brainstorming with leaders about how and where B2P support could help the government advance its own objectives and maximize investments. Our comprehensive toolkit includes:

Together, we explore what is most helpful for the specific partners we’re working with. As an NGO working in the transport infrastructure sector, which is traditionally led (and rightly so) by government, we approach the exploration process as an opportunity for co-creation with our partners, filling identified gaps and bolstering capacities in existing systems and advising on innovative new approaches that may have yet been unconsidered.

Infrastructure as a Catalyst for Development

Even though we are focused on rural transport network connectivity, we know that access is foundational to a broad range of development initiatives, and it is important that we analyze priorities and opportunities in these sectors, as well. Rural transport connectivity can be a stand-alone program, or elements of transport access can be included in programs focused on other development objectives, with the intention of targeting a particular beneficiary group or more generally broadening the market of beneficiaries.

B2P has leveraged investments in education in Cote d’Ivoire, climate mitigation and resiliency in Rwanda, healthcare in Haiti, and livelihoods and agriculture in several countries. When we say we help the government advance its priorities we understand that to extend far beyond the transport sector. We see ourselves as a partner in sustainable, transformative development.

Balancing Priorities for Impactful Partnerships

As an NGO, we are well set up to identify synergies between community needs, government priorities, donor interests, and our own skill set. This strategic balancing is essential in the initial stages of new partnership exploration in new geographies. As we continue this blog series, we’ll dive into how we move from the exploration stage through other key stages of government partnership – all of which are essential for the short- and long-term improvement of rural connectivity.