An Evaluative Study of Public Private Partnership Initiatives’ Success in Social Service Delivery in Kenya: The Case of the Child Protection Sector

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the success of Public Private Partnership (PPP) initiatives in social service delivery with a special focus on the child protection sector in Kenya. Specifically, the study focused on the prevalent partnership models, reasons behind partnership formation, critical success factors and challenges faced in implementation. A purposive sampling method was used to select seven (7) government and Non-governmental partnership agreements and processes in the child protection sector for analysis and 18 informants to who structured interviews were administered. The informants comprised of both top management and frontline staff. The data realized by the study were sorted and analysed as per the research questions with the objective to identify themes, sequences, patterns, processes and interrelations. The results revealed a ‘developmentalization’ of government services through partnerships with NGOs of different types and sizes, working at various levels in Kenya’s child protection sector. These partnerships are not commercial in nature but seek to respond to a huge need for child protection services through sharing of resources. The study categorized the partnerships into formal and informal, structured and unstructured, and Government led and NGO led partnership models with the key distinguishing factor being the levels of collaboration and consultation by the partnering parties in development of the projects, availability of finances, or the presence or lack of a written MOU/agreement. It was established that partnerships in the child protection sector are intertwined, leading to a dependent and interdependent ecosystem; interdependent because each partner has a specific niche, i.e. strategy and policy formulation, financing; and dependent because the interventions are intertwined and none is able to operate singly. The study recommends concerted efforts to develop guiding partnership frameworks for the sector. In addition, further study should be conducted to provide a comprehensive understanding of the interplays in the sector and its effects of service delivery to the children in Kenya.