Business Plan 2007-2012

Based on the findings of the DFID-sponsored evaluation last year in which it was unambiguously found that “BPD is doing the right things and doing them well”, a number of discussions at BPD’s Board level have focused on how the organisation should develop in the coming years.  The result is a new 5-year business plan that maps out BPD’s efforts to meet demand. 

BPD has maintained its overarching mission [to promote more effective delivery of safe water and sanitation services for poor communities in developing countries through multi-stakeholder partnership approaches].  Based on experience, though, we have refined our vision of systemic change with a view that the scope, purpose, structure and resource requirements of partnerships need to be more rigorously negotiated.   For this to happen, partners need to create appropriate spaces to dialogue.

BPD’s primary activities remain largely unchanged focusing on:

1. Innovative action research programmes aimed at engaging and influencing policymakers and practitioners in how different institutional arrangements can more effectively get water and sanitation services to poor people;
2. Direct support to partnership projects to assist in building more effective relationships; and
3. Broad dissemination of tools and frameworks to influence how the water and sanitation sector applies partnership approaches.

Given the general appreciation for BPD as intimate, progressive and focused, our goal has been to maintain the spirit of the organisation.  The challenge has been to mesh these qualities with aspirations that BPD could do more to meet demand for its support and findings. 

Recently approved by BPD’s Board of Directors, the new Business Plan lays out quite clearly the context in which BPD is operating and the organisation’s plan to make a contribution to the sector.  Towards this end, BPD needs to enhance its capacity to deliver by bringing on more staff, creating more of a regional emphasis, and strengthening our network of consultants familiar with our work and thus able to support in BPD’s delivery.

You can read the 5-page Executive Summary (275 KB) of the Business Plan or Contact BPD for the full version.

BPD has also adapted from the Business Plan a 4-page Occasional Note entitled, The Current Partnership Context in Water and Sanitation (228KB) which maps the changing context of multi-sector partnerships in the water and sanitation sector in recent years.