Road to IDF 2019 CCPHI-Nestle:  Establishing Partnerships, Empowering Guliling Village Communities

After Road to IDF 2019 discussion titled 41st Partnership Forum, "Integrated Community Empowerment in Guliling Village, Mamuju: Partnership between Nestlé and the Association of Mig Greece”.

"Through this event, we both learned that the sustainable partnership program should not be about completing something, but rather helping the community to be ready to develop themselves, for a better future," said CCPHI Executive Director, Dian Rosdiana in the Road to IDF 2019 discussion titled 41st Partnership Forum, "Integrated Community Empowerment in Guliling Village, Mamuju: Partnership between Nestlé and the Association of Mig Greece”.

The relationship between donors, the private sector and NGOs as implementers needs to be established in solidarity, flexibility, but still structured in a form of a partnership. This kind of collaboration was illustrated in the Road to IDF 2019 discussion, together with CCPHI and Nestle Indonesia on Wednesday, June 26, 2019. CCPHI is a non-profit organization that promotes and facilitates partnerships between companies, NGOs and local governments for healthy and sustainable communities.

The discussion presented speakers from Nestlé Indonesia and the Association of Mig Greece, a non-profit organization based in Yogyakarta that focuses on research and empowerment, especially in turning knowledge into practice, and knowledge into a policy initiative. Marendra Cahya Sadikin, CCPHI Partnership Building Specialist, was a moderator in this Road to IDF event, as part of the Indonesia Development Forum (IDF) 2019 event with the theme "Mission Possible: Seizing the Opportunities of Future Work to Drive Inclusive Growth”, that will be held on 22-23 July.

How was the partnership between Nestlé and the Mig Greece Association in empowering community empowerment in Guliling Village, Mamuju Regency, West Sulawesi?

Both Nestlé and Migunani as the implementing NGO were able to build a strong and mutual trust. The mutual understanding between the two could be seen from the success of the Integrated Community Empowerment program in Guliling Village from 2015-2017. The program aimed at providing access to clean water, promoting healthy lifestyles, improving health services and developing the local economy through the Village Owned Businesses.

During 2015 – 2017, Migunani helped Nestlé integrate sustainability into its daily business activities by trying to create mutual benefits. This approach managed to improve nutrition, clean water supply, and rural development, which were three main focuses they wanted to achieve in their business operational areas. This was called integrated community empowerment. The improved level of welfare of the cocoa suppliers was expected to trigger corresponding improvement in the quality of raw material they produced, so Nestle standards could be met.

What was the outcome? The Migunani-Nestlé collaboration succeeded in providing access to clean water and sanitation, changing the lifestyle of the people of the Guliling Village to be healthier, improving health services, while developing the local economic potential through the development of Village-Owned Enterprises (BUMDes).

Nestle said that by the end of 2017, 290 families out of 329 families in Guliling Village had been connected to clean water facilities. While the remaining 39 heads of families were those who lived in hamlets which had preliminary been connected clean water.  

The local government fully supported the management of clean water facilities which was transformed into a village-owned business entity (BUMDes). The village government through BUMDes helps with daily operations, namely to do maintenance, expansion of outreach, and channeling funds of Rp50 each year to help fund village activities.

Migunani observed that some people started to use public latrines as a new habit. This has increased the level of hygiene of the villagers and the river water became cleaner.

Family nutrition in Guliling Village also improved. Before this program started, people considered instant noodles as part of their main dish. Now, children are accustomed to bringing food from home. This program, according to Nestle, helped reduce family expenses. Because they planted vegetables to be consumed by families. In fact, some families managed to sell vegetables to the market to improve their household’s income. Vegetables were also used as a means of payment when buying things from the local mobile vendors. 

The Long and Winding Road to Develop Guliling Village

Through the community participation approach, Nestlé hoped that the integrated community empowerment program could foster a sense of ownership of the local community, in order to ensure the sustainability of the program in the future.  However, the implementation of this program was not without challenges. Efforts to change the mindset and daily habits of the local people often got rejected.

They did not only express reluctance to run the program, but also did protests. In this case, Migunani who accompanied the village community in their development had to continue to build dialogues. They had to respect the local customs and culture, and involve local facilitators.

The unavailability of data was another challenge in implementing this program. We all know that data is important to measure the outcome of the program. Without which, progress and changes could not be measured and translated into numbers or percentage.

Beyond the program challenges, Nestlé was also faced with challenges in understanding different maps produced at the social mapping stage. The discrepancy led to a gap between the current map and the one produced by a previous partner. To overcome this, Migunani repeated the mapping with the hope that the new map could be more relevant to the needs of the people of Guliling Village.

Another challenge was the poor communication network signal in Guliling Village. However, the two partners did not consider this a serious threat, as trust and a strong network had been established by Migugani during the implementation of the program.

The key to the success of Nestlé's CSV program in Guliling Village was in the different values offered by each partner. Nestlé was not only about channeling funds, but they also put in place a clear framework that was open for input and opinions from other parties.

Also, Migunani had a strong advocacy ability at the grassroot level. Migugani's ability to engage with various parties to foster a sense of community ownership of this program was also one of the keys to success.

The key to success also lies in the efforts of each individual on both sides to adapt and communicate. This step succeeded in building mutual trust. The technical obstacles to the program could be addressed through healthy discussion.

This successful collaboration empowers the community that emerged in this 2019 Road to IDF discussion. From this discussion we could see that there was a hope that all parties could be more flexible in collaboration. In addition, when they plan to conduct a company assistance program, they should not only focus on the outcomes. Outreach to beneficiaries was crucial compared to just planning and implementing a program. The # 41 Partnership Forum was attended by: 49 participants from the private sector (including companies, philanthropy, and media), NGOs, and research institutions. Multi stakeholder collaboration and engagement with various elements of society, including rural communities were part of efforts to encourage inclusive growth on all fronts.