Today when funds in many countries are being restricted or greater impact demanded from the same level of funding, partnerships are seen as one way of responding to the escalating demands on Public Diplomacy. However, how far can a partnership go, and what is the ultimate demonstration of success?
The example of the British Council continuing to work in the aftermath of the 1956 Suez Crisis is often sighted in anecdote. It is used as example of the British Council continuing to work through a time of crisis. This, while a nice story, overlooks that the appointment of sequestrators, including Abdel Rehim Rashwan, who was the chief inspector of English at the Ministry of Education in Egypt. As a result of sequestration, the work was not being run under British authority but by the authority of another national government.
This reality is, however, much better than the original anecdote and demonstrates possibly the ultimate success in building relationships with a host country:
The work and relationships which the British Council had developed before the Suez crisis were considered so valuable that the sequestrators “embarked on a policy for the Council which followed to the letter its previous activities under the British“. As a result, English language classes continued and a production of Midsummer Night’s Dream drew a large crowd.
In continuing the programme in this form, the sequestrators ensured that opportunities, for example language training, were still available to the local community. As a result, the British Council continued to achieve impact despite having to withdraw national staff and hand over authority for running their programmes.
Today with increasing focus on impact and growing emphasis on partnerships, how many Public Diplomacy organisations could rely on the target audience or local community to continue their work without the PD organisation being involved?
Many current approaches are unlikely to receive this kind of support.
Some ‘pump-priming’ grants or programmes set up specifically to be sustainable will be able to continue once the original Public Diplomacy funding is removed. However, these are specific initiatives. The Egyptian example demonstrates an entire national programme continuing after national representatives were forced to withdraw; the host government took on the responsibility of running the same programme as had originally been in place.
Many current programmes are developed to be heavily centralised, focusing authority on the PD organisation, causing the programme to be reliant on it for coordination and financial support. Inevitably, when funding or official support ceases the initiatives grind to a halt. This in many instances means the impact is limited to the time frame of the funding.
Engaging with decentralised or dispersed networks would have the potential to extending the impact, by passing responsibility for the initiative on to others. This has the potential to increase longevity but reduces control, a trade off that would have to be addressed on a case by case basis.
Today, whatever the approach, sequestration resulting in another country running an organisation’s Public Diplomacy programme is unlikely at best. The example of post-Suez Egypt is an ongoing example of the potential of a relationship, well beyond the usual hopes for partnership in the 21st century.