Collaborative Philanthropy
for
Enabling Dignified Livelihoods
Agenda
2030 raises important challenges that make it necessary to identify
innovative formulas and methodologies in order to contribute to
improving the efficiency and impact of international cooperation
programmes. For over 23 years “la Caixa” Foundation has been carrying
out projects to improve living conditions of the most vulnerable
communities in Latin America, Africa and Asia. The Foundation works
closely with several local and international partners, prioritising
inclusive partnerships and networks, focusing mainly on global health
and job creation programmes.
Given this reality and as a consequence of
our experience, we truly consider that private sector entities such as
foundations must act as promoters of transformation processes, avoiding
focusing solely and exclusively on the management and transfer of
resources. In this transformation framework, experience has shown that
alliances and networks always offer more effective results than a set of
one-off actions.
Following this vision, the "la Caixa" Foundation
launched the Work 4 Progress programme in 2017. This programme promotes
open innovation platforms that seek synergies in the work of
organisations, connecting local solutions with global problems with the
aim of creating job opportunities for women and young people in India,
Mozambique and Peru. Its main innovation is the inclusion of new tools
and methodologies in:
1) Listening to and identifying community
needs
2) Joint creation and prototyping of new
solutions
3) Exploration of scaling instruments
4) Governance
5) Evolutionary evaluation systems
6) Inclusive funding strategies
![](images/Pg4a.jpg)
Since initiation, the programme has acquired
a sum of learnings that are contributing to changing organisational
cultures and obtaining note-worthy results for job creation. However,
the complexity implicit in a social innovation programme applied in
changing contexts, such as the one that we are all facing at present of
COVID-19, presents additional important challenges. Under these
circumstances, social innovation tools can contribute to meeting
critical needs and enabling adaptive capacities. These tools can
contribute to increasing the impact of programmes even in uncertain
times, by avoiding top-down proposals and through inclusive models of
collaboration. Private sector organisations including foundations must
be prepared to adapt to changing contexts, promote innovative models and
encourage different responses.
Following this vision, from the very
beginning of the pandemic outbreak, “la Caixa” Foundation has been
adapting all our programmes to the COVID-19 context launching specific
activities and projects, mostly in Spain given our long history and
presence in the country and because of the dramatic impact of the
pandemic here. We are also working hand in hand with our partners in
Latin America, Asia and African countries in order to together align the
projects promoted to the current context.![](images/Pg5.jpg)
All our actions respond to the need of
rethinking promotion of international development cooperation projects
by promoting new tools to reinforce their impact and incorporate a new
approach to social innovation. All this through the sum of efforts in
transformative actions from a territorial point of view, generating a
new culture of collaboration between the entities. In this sense, W4P
promotes the systematisation and sharing of knowledge generated from
field experience in the 3 countries where we operate. Some examples are
the publication Open Innovation Platforms for Sustainable Development in
collaboration with UNDP and the Practical guides about listening,
co-creation, prototyping and evaluation, edited in collaboration with
the Centre for Innovation in Technology for Human Development (itdUPM)
of the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid. Our India platform in the
context of the current crisis has initiated a new toolkit series for
meso-level stakeholders encompassing key strategies for responding to
the crisis based on social innovation principles.
The aim is to increase its impact and
sustainability, incorporate new iterative and inclusive monitoring and
evaluation processes that allow the programme to be adapted in real time
to the needs of each place. In short, betting on innovation, including
technological innovation, and local networks and alliances for
collaboration. One example of collaboration from the Mozambique W4P
platform is a ‘Guarantee Fund’ to provide credits to vulnerable
producers of Cabo Delgado, in collaboration with a major bank, BCI (Banco
Comercial e de Investimentos). The ‘Guarantee Fund’ of 100.000 euros has
enabled delivery of more than 50 credits in 2019. It is planned to
increase the amount of the fund for 2020 with the participation of new
partners.
In Peru, the W4P platform has developed a
portfolio of 17 micro-company prototypes, ready to receive co-financing
from third partners. This is the case, for example, of the Center of
Business Services, an incubator developed under W4P, which has received
co-financing from AECID, the Spanish Agency of International Cooperation
to provide services to indigenous entrepreneurs of Condorcanqui (Amazonia,
Peru).
The paradigms of international cooperation
are changing and the core of la Caixa’s principles of collaboration,
inclusive networks and shared learning provides a new pathway to
implement international cooperation programmes.
■
Small bios of guest authors
Ms. Ariadna Bardolet Urgellès
Director - International Department, “la Caixa” Foundation
Ms. Urgellès has been with the “la Caixa” Foundation since 1997, and is
currently the Director of International Programmes. She is in charge of
programmes dealing with development issues like global health, education,
and job creation in more than forty countries.
Ms. Marta Solsona Masana
Programme Manager, “la Caixa” Foundation
In charge of the Work 4 Progress programme at “la Caixa Foundation”, Ms.
Masana currently coordinates development projects aimed at creating
employment and generating economic activity in developing countries.
Ariadna Bardolet Urgellès
abardolet@fundaciolacaixa.org
and Marta Solsona Masana
msolsona@fundaciolacaixa.org
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