Bridges to Prosperity: Partnering with governments to eradicate rural isolation

Bridges to Prosperity is dedicated to eradicating poverty caused by rural isolation. They partner with governments to plan, fund, and implement rural transport infrastructure like trail bridges, having shifted from ‘building bridges’ to ensuring ‘bridges get built.’

Situation

  • Problem: A billion people lack safe transportation access to essential services like health care, education, or employment due to impassable rivers.
  • Solution: Cost-effective, scalable and sustainable bridges that connect rural, isolated communities.
  • Impact: Over 600 bridges provide safe access for nearly 3 million people in rural communities, improving income, education, and health.
  • Annual operating budget: $15.3 million.

 

Funding model at scale

Bridges to Prosperity has built more than 600 trail bridges, serving almost 3 million community members throughout the world ‘to create a world where poverty caused by rural isolation no longer exists’. Their model involves entering new countries, building ecosystems, partnering with governments, and forming private-public partnerships. This sustains bridge building costs without Bridges to Prosperity needing to perpetually raise funds.

Here’s what their process looks like: 

  1. Initial Assessment: B2P enters a country to deeply understand the context, including the scope and distribution of rural access needs, private sector and public sector standards, and key actors.
  2. Bridge Construction: The organisation works closely with the government to build capacity and create an enabling environment for a government-led rural access programme. This is achieved through multidimensional collaboration on training bridges, funded through philanthropy.
  3. Advocacy and Advisory: 
    • While building bridges, B2P advocates for the importance of bridges and government funding for their construction.
    • They provide technical advisory services to help governments effectively plan, prioritise, budget, and implement rural infrastructure projects. Additionally, they address key gaps in education and private sector capacity, building local capacity and ownership.
  4. Exit Strategy: After 5-10 years, B2P exits the country, leaving the government fully responsible for expanding and maintaining the rural infrastructure network, with an allocated budget for bridges. B2P will then move into another country, following the same process.

Bridges to Prosperity has scaled in Rwanda, Uganda, Ethiopia, and Zambia, with government and private sector partners funding the bridges. In these countries, government contributions cover up to 80% of bridge-building costs.

To fill the remaining funding gap and support their role, B2P relies on philanthropy, corporate, and government funding. 

Funding sources

Government's funding

Governments contribute 10% of B2P’s annual budget.

Philanthropy

About 50% of Bridges to Prosperity’s annual budget comes from philanthropic funding, with multi-year, multi-million dollar grants supporting their country programs, innovation, and core operations.

Corporate programme

Bridges to Prosperity runs a corporate volunteering programme that generates 15% of their annual income. Teams from US engineering and construction companies collaborate alongside local teams on bridge projects in Rwanda. This creates meaningful experiences for the volunteers and generates unrestricted income for B2P.

We shifted from building bridges to getting bridges built. If we had stuck with the model of building bridges ourselves rather than investing in enabling others and shifting the system, we would have never unlocked governments being able to build and maintain the bridges.

Nivi Sharma Chief Executive Officer

Journey to scale

Bridges to Prosperity has shifted from building individual bridges to a systems change approach. They focus on building ecosystems, partnering with governments to transform how rural infrastructure is planned, prioritised, budgeted, and supported through government policies. Their goal is to empower governments to independently build and maintain rural access networks.

Four success factors in securing funding for scale

  1.   Alignment with government 

Bridges to Prosperity has made a concerted effort to cultivate strong partnerships with government officials and agencies. It has positioned its work as directly supporting governments’ goals of improving rural livelihoods and connectivity. At the same time, it provides comprehensive technical assistance to make it easier for governments to take on bridge construction projects.

  1. Evidence of impact – Gathering irrefutable evidence

 Bridges to Prosperity uses rigorous evidence, like randomised controlled trials (RCTs), to demonstrate the impact of their bridge-building work. They leverage this evidence to show governments the high return on investment and the crucial role of bridges in poverty alleviation.

  1.   Diversification of funding sources

Bridges to Prosperity has moved from relying on individual donations to a diverse funding mix that includes corporate programmes, foundation support, and government funding. This shift has enabled them to secure larger, multi-year grants to support their strategic move towards systems change.

  1.   Advocacy – Elevating rural connectivity on the development agenda

“The goal is to create a shared understanding and urgency around the importance of first-mile connectivity, so that governments, donors, and the aid sector start prioritising and funding these types of rural infrastructure solutions.”  – Nivi Sharma, Chief Executive Officer

 How are they doing this?

  • Partnering with organisations like Deloitte that advise governments on infrastructure investments.
  • Partnering with other implementing organisations such as HELVETAS, who
    have long-standing government partnerships in geographies like Ethiopia.
  • Public speaking, publishing thought leadership pieces, and reporting data and evidence.
  • Cultivating high-level government relationships. For example, in Rwanda they worked with the former Minister of Infrastructure to be their partnership specialist, which help them navigate government bureaucracy.
  • Trying to get the rural connectivity issue embedded in global development frameworks and agendas.

Conclusion

Bridges to Prosperity’s evolution from seeing themselves as the primary doer to enabling others to prioritise and build bridges unlocked a significantly greater impact than they could have achieved building bridges alone. Their strategic approaches building ecosystems, partnering with governments and diversifying funding streams have been key to this success. As a result, they have connected communities via pedestrian trail bridges, ensuring that almost 3 million rural community members are no longer isolated.
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