Making Cross-Sector Part­ners­hips Work: How Lo­cal NGOs Navi­ga­te Pla­ce, Gover­nan­ce, and So­ci­al Dy­na­mi­cs in Ru­ral Wa­ter Ac­cess Pro­jects in Stra­ti­fied Con­te­xts

Ahaana Mahanti’s research examines how local NGOs mediate the implementation of global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through cross-sector partnerships in marginalized rural regions of India. While partnerships between corporations, donors, NGOs, and governments are increasingly promoted as solutions to sustainable development challenges such as water access, their outcomes often vary substantially across places. The dissertation investigates how these partnerships are negotiated and sustained in practice within contexts shaped by infrastructural deprivation, caste and gender inequalities, and uneven governance systems.

Drawing on an in-depth qualitative study of the India Water Project, a decade-long Indo-Danish initiative delivering solar-powered drinking water systems across remote rural India, the dissertation develops a relational and place-based perspective on sustainability governance. Through three interlinked articles, the study shows how NGOs engage in “grassroots brokering” work to align global agendas, partnership arrangements, state missions, and community institutions over time. The research contributes to scholarship on cross-sector partnerships, collaborative governance, and civil society by showing that sustainability initiatives depend not only on partnership design, but also on the relational and place-based mediation work of locally embedded actors.