Partnerships are essential to every social-change project. And for many of the social innovators we’ve studied at the Solutions Insights Lab, governments are among the most important partners for scaling their work—including governments that might seem unlikely to help. “To do systems change work, it’s very difficult without government partners, and you have to overcome a certain level of cynicism about that,” said Chris Jochnick of Landesa, which helps families in India obtain legal land rights through digital records. “Even corrupt governments, even authoritarian governments are capable of doing good at times, and finding those opportunities is really critical. Finding those people within challenging governments that are influential and have the right mindset is really critical.” Governments change, sometimes in sudden, unexpected, and destabilizing ways. So the ability to keep working nimbly across government transitions is central to survival and success. “Agility and the adaptations that we have had to make, sometimes uncomfortably or sometimes under pressure, were needed because the government system works differently from when you are your own system,” said Lydia Wilbard of CAMFED - Campaign for Female Education, which supports the educational advancement of girls and young women in Tanzania, Ghana, Malawi, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. “Sometimes, because we work with government officials, we have to build it in the budget to retrain, because there is no direct control of who will be in school this year or might move to another school where we are not working. We have had to be adaptive in terms of proactively budgeting for the retraining and reorientation that is necessary for the program to continue.” What’s Working—our database of hundreds of incisive interviews with the world’s most effective problem-solvers—is full of crucial, actionable insights on how to cultivate and navigate government partnerships for social change. Take a look here: https://lnkd.in/dZBmqxSJ
