D.6 Partnerships
Partnerships can contribute to successful school connectivity projects by spreading the costs and the risks, and by providing assets, funding, and expertise.The nature of partnerships varies. The selection and inclusion of partners in school connectivity projects depends on what assets, funding, or expertise is needed.
Partnerships may be linked to financial or in-kind contributions to the implementation of the programme or a specific project within it. The checklist below can help to determine if a partner is needed, and if so, what kind of partner:
- Forming a partnership with a cost-sharing component decreases the deployment costs for each partner. This is particularly true in high-cost rural and remote areas.
- Revenue potential: A partner may provide ideas to enhance revenue potential (for example finding anchor tenants, aggregating community demand, and removing regulatory barriers to expedite broadband deployment).
- There are synergies and the total cost of ownership / participation, over the long term, may be less with a network dedicated to serving such synergies (between broader community).
D.6.1 Partnership roadmap
Once a partner has been identified and a formal or informal partnership model decided upon, the fund or other partner should consider the templates Section on Partnerships to put in place formal and informal partnerships.