Programming Partnership Case Study: Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL)

The scale of Concordia’s events and programming often affords us the ability to make strides on numerous goals our partners have. Our Programming Partnership with the Digital Impact Alliance (DIAL) at the 2020 Annual Summit provides a useful example of an organization that came in with several coordinated priorities and desired engagement points. This provided the basis for a more robust partnership, replete with a more significant footprint, higher visibility, and increased programming opportunities for DIAL as a Principal Programming Partner.

Founded in 2016, DIAL aims to support global development by catalyzing equitable access to digital services and solutions among governments, NGOs, and multilateral institutions. When Concordia formalized its partnership with DIAL, the organization was nearing a pivotal five-year mark in its history, enabling Concordia’s platform to bring awareness to the progress made by DIAL, as well as barriers faced and the path ahead. Concordia could also support the key foundations of DIAL’s continued growth, whether thought leadership positioning or network cultivation. Finally, it could serve as a strategic contributor to DIAL’s internal discussions, mobilizing and renewing resource commitments from the donor community to re-energize and scale the mission for the next five years.

Concordia worked with DIAL to build out two programming engagements at the 2020 Annual Summit, each targeted at a different priority of DIAL’s.

The first was a Mainstage panel discussion called “Shaping our Global Future: Digital Cooperation for SDG Impact,” which explored prospects for cooperation between governments, technology service providers, and digital donors. Drawing on the expertise of representatives from DIAL, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and GIZ, the conversation highlighted the fragmented—and sometimes duplicative—state of the current digital development ecosystem. The panel showcased the perspectives of stakeholders who recognize the importance of greater coordination to a large, global audience, elevating DIAL as an anchor of such collaboration.

Second, Concordia and DIAL partnered on a Strategic Dialogue called “A Whole of Society Agenda: Global Cooperation for National Digital Transformation”. Strategic Dialogues, offering a longer form conversation and more voices at the table than a traditional panel, provide an optimal programming format for partners to explore in real time the nuances of an issue area or challenge, develop roadmaps or coalitions, and publicly present successes that could be scaled. To deliver on DIAL’s Annual Summit goals, we focused on three dimensions across both Africa and Europe: (1) the role of digital in rebuilding our societies and communities, (2) bridging the digital financing gap, and (3) reforming regulatory and investment environments around national digital transformation. The session kicked off with initial framing remarks by DIAL on the potential of a whole-of-society agenda for improving healthcare, education, and infrastructure globally. It then moved into a dynamic conversation between representatives of Cloudera Foundation, Microsoft, the Kenyan Government, Sida, Smart Africa, and the United Nations Development Programme. 

Through the several programming engagements at the Annual Summit, DIAL not only promoted critical messaging to a wider audience, but also facilitated a deeper dive into the specific issues at play, unveiled a set of best practices, and sharpened the roadmap for the various stakeholders involved. Naturally, all of this resulted in greater visibility for DIAL’s own leadership on digital development, and more opportunities to engage individuals and organizations who would enrich those efforts through Concordia’s curation.

But looking beyond the centerpiece engagements of our partnership with DIAL, the partnership also underscores Concordia’s ability to meaningfully contribute to our partners’ goals throughout the calendar year—not solely in the context of one summit.

When we work with our partners, we aim to develop as strong an understanding of their goals as possible. In this case, we understood that DIAL wanted to champion best practices for creating a flourishing marketplace of digital products in developing regions, along with sensible policies around the funding and procurement of digital public goods. That awareness guided the way in which we designed the main elements of DIAL’s engagement at the 2020 Annual Summit. But it also enabled us to keep DIAL top of mind for other engagement opportunities that arose throughout the remainder of our year-round programming, even if they fell outside the specific stipulations of our partnership.

In particular, the programming we (Concordia) were developing with Google on the application of its Digital Sprinters framework in Latin America and Africa offered a prime opportunity for DIAL’s expertise to bolster additional conversations. For each of the two Strategic Dialogues on which we partnered with Google, we were able to secure DIAL leadership in open moderator roles. This enabled us to position DIAL amongst regional thought leaders and government officials from both priority regions, all while ensuring that the conversations were guided by experts with a broad understanding of the various issues. (We strived to do the same for our Lagos Partnership Accelerator in March 2020, although COVID-19 unfortunately made DIAL’s travel to the event impossible.)

“Our sessions at the Concordia Annual Summit enabled us to profile key partners, generate interesting discussion, and create a lasting digital asset in the form of our recorded sessions. We also participated in the inaugural Africa Summit, participated in high level events and panels with partners such as Google and national governments, and look forward to seeing Concordia grow its regional events series.” – Digital Impact Alliance

As we work with our partners—new and returning—we therefore encourage them to be transparent and comprehensive in outlining their goals to us. Is there a particular message the partner is looking to amplify? Is there a partnership or initiative the partner would like to highlight? What kinds of stakeholders would be helpful for our partner to engage in order to more effectively forge cross-sector collaboration on social impact? Is there a set of issues on which the partner would simply like to facilitate further discussion and collaboration?

We recognize that goals change over time and therefore we strive to build longer-term, year-round partnerships as much as possible. Overall, we pride ourselves on being nimble in how we support a number of our partners’ core priorities through flexible formats and customized engagements. Our partnership with DIAL provides one illustration of that approach, but we are always brainstorming new ways to elevate our community.