Partnership is one of the objectives as well as strategies of MS Nepal for implementation of its policy and principles. The 1996 MS Mission statements focus on MS Nepal as a partnership organization (Mission No. 1) and the 1996 policy paper identities four Development focuses for this purpose and partnership creation is one of the three modules adopted by MS Nepal as its overall implementation strategy.

The MS concept of partnership is a "long-term relationship with two or more partners in mutual trust to share responsibility for joining resources to achieve a common goal for their mutual benefit and empowerment". The three main goals behind partnership are putting the local partners in focus as the owners and as catalysts, strengthening the capacity of local NGOs and CBOs as vehicles for development, and linking change and advocacy functions of MS work for greater impact. These three goals can be achieved by the following roles and activities to be performed by the MS partners in Nepal.

• Partners are expected to fulfil the following roles and functions:
• Encourage local voluntary work.
• Strengthen local representative bodies such as the VDCs.
• Organize local level dialogues.
• Encourage pluralism.
• Strengthen the institutional, financial and technical capacity of CBOs in designing and implementing their activities to improve the capabilities of the CBO members.
• Establish linkages among local CBOs and between local CBOs and outside agencies.
• Encourage democratic norms in the CBOs.
• Take up advocacy activities.
• Promote educational activities for the Danish people and the international community.

Strengths

• Organizational capacity building as a means to poverty reduction has been effective, but it is a long-term process which needs more time and more resources.
• The quality of partnership has been gradually changing with improvement in organizational management and programme management (Common to all NGO partners).
• Inclusion of the excluded, especially women, is possible through mainstreaming gender. Increasing focus on mainstreaming gender has led to visible improvement in the level of participation of women as the number of women participating in the decision making process has increased (BASE).
• Partnerships evolving from self-help groups supported by MS-Nepal have the greatest potential for developing into stronger partnerships (WDC, WWA).
• Some partners have been gradually evolving into NGO Resource Centers for sharing resources and experiences (NEPAN, RDC, WDC.).
• Working with disadvantaged ethnic minority groups like Tharus and Kiratis has increased their visibility in national media and development forums, and has contributed to formulation of national policies and programmes for their upliftment (BASE, KYC).
• Working with women organizations contributes to poverty reduction and provides value added benefits for the community as partnership cooperation brings greater opportunities for women and social workers to take up non-traditional roles like animal health workers (WDC), lobby and advocacy (WWA, NBS) and Community Leadership (WDC, WWA, BASE, NBS).

Limitations

• Most partnerships have tended to focus on meeting the basic needs of target communities rather than their strategic needs.
• Partnerships are still more project-based rather than real partnerships.
• Smaller partner NGOs have benefited much from the presence of DWs. However potentials, and the capabilities of DWs have not been fully utilized in all partnerships.
• Partner NGOs have emerged as the primary beneficiaries under the process of organizational capacity building as a means to poverty alleviation strategy and have benefited much while the target communities have emerged as secondary beneficiaries.
• Partner organizations put more focus on implementation of development projects and less focus on lobby and advocacy for promotion of civil society, basic rights, women and child rights due to major focus on development activities in project document.
• The thin spread of MS Nepal programmes in large geographical areas has resulted in poor visibility of MS programmes, difficulties in supervising and monitoring, and uncertainty about sustainability.
• Recent democratic change and focus on devolution of power demand promotion of multiple partnership among (I) CBO/NGO (ii) Community (iv) VDC/DDC; and (iv) INGOs but MS Nepal has not yet made a policy shift to cope with the changed context.

Topics
	Schematic Presentation of Program
	Future Strategic Choices
	What MS can offer
	Organizational structure
	Partnership Analysis
	Present Partner Profile
	MS Staffs