OUR WORK
Partnership Bureau has worked with many partners and clients on a range of projects, from large-scale programmes in education to in-depth learning consultancies with funders to training for NGOs and charities.
What Is It: The Ghana Science and Tech Explorer Prize (GSTEP) is focused on addressing STEM equity and access for young people aged 11-16. By providing access to STEM knowledge, expertise and equipment, young people are offered an opportunity to think and build creative and innovative STEM solutions for issues in their communities across Ghana.
What We Did: We founded GSTEP and built the Ghana-led consortia of partners, which was able to secure $5 million across five years from Fondation Botnar. Our team continues to maintain the dynamic partnership and has established strong public-private partnerships with the Ministry of Education, Ghana, the Ghana Education Service, Fidelity Bank, Stanbic Bank and more. We have led on strategy, sustainability and impact for GSTEP.
How We Did It: The founders, having worked on STEM education programmes in the UK, identified a gap in providing equity and access to STEM in Ghana. This led to the development of the original concept, partnership, and strategy. We conducted extensive participatory and exploratory research, cocreation and codesign on GSTEP with young people, teachers, schools and government to ensure that what is being created is for and by the people. We developed the partnership based on our own equitable partnership and collaboration practice, and ensure that the consortia partners are in alignment with the values of GSTEP, which has been co-created and co-defined together.
What Is It: The Royal Academy of Engineering is the UK’s national academy of engineering, offering a range of UK and global engineering fellowships and programmes.
What We Did: Our team collaborated with the Academy to understand and assess diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in their international entrepreneurship programmes, specifically the Leaders in Innovation Fellowships and Frontiers programme.
How We Did It: Partnership Bureau applied our bespoke PEA tool to address the questions and concerns that the Academy team had on DEI in their two programmes. We worked to understand and assess the perspectives of the team members, participants (entrepreneurs, academics and researchers) regarding their experiences.
What Is It: The Ghana Alliance focuses on weaving together the Ghana portfolio of partners across various themes of education, health, urban resilience, and more in an equitable, trusting, and meaningful way to coalesce the rich tapestry of young people, communities, and partners. in Ghana.
What We Did: Partnership Bureau facilitated the development of the Ghana Alliance, which focuses on building the organisational capacities of Ghanaian partners through learning and exchange, building meaningful collective youth participation by bringing together the different young people in Ghana together; and collective youth impact to tell the combined narrative of the story of young people in Ghana (by young people).
How We Did It: We conducted an extensive mapping exercise to understand the Ghana partners and their experiences, which enabled us to understand the key areas for learning, exchange, support and community building. This led to the co-creation, co-design and co-production of the Ghana Alliance manifesto, values and identity. We will be piloting a series of activities for six months, owned and led by various partners, which include a Partner Summit, learning circles around youth engagement models and capacity building on partnerships and funding.
What Is It: The Small International Development Charities Network (SIDCN) is an advocacy network funded by BOND and FCDO to connect, strengthen and champion small charities internationally so they are better able to support the communities they serve.
What We Did: We headlined SIDCN Festival 2024 as the key note speakers on a Shift The Power: Principled Power Protocols (PPP). The session focused on exploring how power dynamics present themselves between actors in the development space across the global north and south; how equitable practice can be developed for greater impact; and how how access can be developed more contextually to support diversity and inclusion.
How We Did It: Partnership Bureau developed a set of concepts, tools and training focused on Shifting the Power through PPP. There are three key strands - strategic, operational and monitoring, evaluation, accountability, research and learning (MEARL). The session was attended by 40+ international development charity leaders, and was interactive to ensure participants could work together to improve awareness and understanding, and understand how they could act and implement PPP.