How We Work
Meaningful participation is essential for solutions to be sustainable. We teach people the skills they need to participate in decisions and design solutions that affect their lives. We teach people the skills they need to participate in decisions and design solutions that affect their lives. Where there are gaps preventing cooperation between government, civil society and the private sector, we bring people together and help them build platforms for constructive dialogue at the individual, organizational, local community and national levels.
For 20 years, we have based our approach on building local capacity. Rather than arriving in a country with pre-packaged solutions, we identify local social entrepreneurs and teach them to mobilize their communities to solve complex problems in a rapidly changing world. These local 
Leaders go on to build and sustain independent organizations, called Partners Centers, which become part of our global network.
Our methodologies can be grouped into three broad areas. We apply these techniques directly, and we train people to apply them and share them with others.
| Fundamental Conflict Management and Resolution Methods |
Participation and Consensus Building Processes |
Leadership and Change Management Techniques |
|---|---|---|
| By sharing knowledge through our worldwide network, Centers have become cutting edge practitioners of methods such as negotiation, mediation and conciliation. The Centers are uniquely positioned to and adapt and apply these techniques within their local cultural context. Partners has pioneered mediating policies laws, innovative processes, and mediation associations and institutional systems. Partners' "Ethnic Conciliation Commissions" are models for local inter-ethnic conflict management. |
Based upon our experience helping people around the world participate in policy-making, planning and advocacy in a variety of sectors, we have created, tested and refined an innovative toolkit of approaches to facilitate dialogue and generate breakthrough solutions. Partners has pioneered Cooperative Advocacy and Consensus Facilitation as new participatory agreement models. |
Building self-sustaining Centers in 17 countries, Partners’ expertise in leadership, organizational, and sustainable development gives it a unique niche in institution-building. In 2010, several Partners Centers will be 20 years old. Organizational sustainability is one of Partners’ development hallmarks and the focus of Partners’ “Organizational Sustainability Institute” to be launched in late-2009. |
How We Work
