How can the SDC best work with large corporations to reach its impact goals?
Achieving the SDGs by 2030 will require the involvement of the private sector, this view has become a reality in the past years. As many donors, the SDC is actively pursuing a Private Sector Engagement (PSE) Strategy, to collaborate with private sector actors such as companies, foundations or impact investors in a pre-defined framework. In these efforts, multinational companies (MNCs) play a key role, as they are present in many countries in which public resources to tackle development challenges are scarce. Thus, in the last decade the SDC has developed multiple PSE programs with corporate social responsibility (CSR) departments of the MNCs.
In doing so, like many other donors, the SDC has faced multiple challenges preventing them from effectively engaging with MNCs. That's why the SDC mandated Hystra, to develop a guiding document on how SDC can best work with MNC to reach its impact goals.
The objective of the document is to provide the SDC’s strategic and operational teams with insights, illustrated by concrete examples, on how to better collaborate with large corporations especially with their core business, as part of the SDC’s PSE strategy. It is structured around the following 5 key questions:
Why and how to go beyond CSR when engaging large corporations?
How to manage confidentiality concerns?
How to ensure accountability throughout a PSE project life cycle?
How to leverage networks and consortia to facilitate PSE?
What should be the roles and responsibilities of the SDC HQ and operational units when collaborating with global corporations?
