Franchising Development Programmes - Brief Description

Transforming a project into a national development programme requires major “re-tooling”. Scaling-up the implementation capacity necessitates mobilising more resources, which in turn requires innovative ideas for tapping potential donor agencies and partners. A plurality of different partnership models based upon the principles of “franchising” approach offers an array of different cooperating models with potential donors.    “Franchising” is generally described as the granting or licensing of certain defined intellectual property rights and access to certain tangible and intangible benefits and privileges by one company or organisation (the “Franchisor”) to another (the “Franchisee”). The term describes many different forms of organisational or business relationships, including licensing, distributor and agency arrangements. It is usually used in the business world. However, there are no plausible reasons as to why it cannot be used by organisations involved in development work.   A franchise system is a success kit. All the necessary tools are provided except human aspiration. The franchisee is an independent contributor to the company’s or organisations success and is a participant in it.   The system works like this: An organisation (or company) perfects a superior product or service and makes a success in that field. Then, for a concession or fee, the successful organisations becomes a franchiser, showing others how to succeed in the same way. The result is that the franchisers own organisation (or company) expands far faster than otherwise possible, the new franchisee gets an opportunity not otherwise available, and the public usually benefits from the improved product or service.