Safety in Numbers: Reducing Road Risk with Danida’s Multi-sector Partnership

The Fleet Safety project was developed in response to the needs of the members of the Fleet Forum, an informal collaborating body and independent knowledge centre for fleet management in the humanitarian sector. With the backing of Danish government aid agency Danida, the Fleet Safety project drew on the resources of government, the humanitarian sector and private companies to develop, test and disseminate a road safety toolkit for humanitarian organizations operating in the developing world. The toolkit was tested within the Kenya offices of six major humanitarian organizations before the definitive version was to be disseminated and promoted globally.

While two-way partnerships are increasingly common in the humanitarian world, rarely to-date do governments, NGOs and private companies combine their skills through partnerships involving a larger number of actors from a variety of sectors. This may be due to the common perception that transaction costs exceed the benefits of the partnerships, and that multiple strategic objectives cannot be compatible. This case examines how a multi-sector partnership contributed to the Fleet Safety project's success, and how the partners overcame the challenges of coordination. This case seeks to familiarize students with public-private partnerships as an innovative funding mechanism for humanitarian projects through government aid agencies, explain their benefits and challenges and analyze negotiating in the humanitarian sector or within public-private partnerships.