Operating Units
SaRCiSP works through operating units. An operating unit is the smallest local structure through which an intervention is carried out: a municipality, a commune, a local government authority or an equivalent. It identifies its own priorities, owns the interventions in its area, and holds a stake in them through its contribution to the financing.
Choosing an Operating Unit
SaRCiSP selects the smallest local entity that meets three criteria.
- Institutional legitimacy: recognized authority to convene, decide and act
- Geographic coherence: boundaries that match a functional territory such as a watershed, service catchment or land-use zone, not only an administrative line
- Operational capacity: the ability to coordinate an intervention through its full lifecycle
The right unit differs between countries, and sometimes between regions of the same country.
Operating Unit Engagement
Engagement does not require an intervention in the operating unit’s territory. An operating unit may host an intervention. It may instead take part as a collaborator. It may supply feedstock to the programme, or buy services and products from it. The forms of engagement are not yet fixed.
Clear Objectives
The objective for each operating unit is to be:
- Visible to funders, through trusted systems and not narrative
- Financeable, structured to absorb blended capital responsibly and on de-risked terms for all stakeholders
- Connected into value chains that absorb capital responsibly
- Measurable through audited results
Four Reinforcing Loops
An operating unit runs on four loops: operations and capacity, vitality, trust and capital, and network and cluster. Each loop returns modest gains on its own, and together they compound. SaRCiSP's capital and design carry the first loop past the point where the others begin to feed each other.
Joining SaRCiSP
An operating unit joins SaRCiSP when it engages with it. Each operating unit carries out its own interventions, and capital is structured for each unit separately. The operating units in a country together make up SaRCiSP's presence there.
An operating unit joins when four things are in place. It has formally engaged with SaRCiSP, through a letter of intent from its administration or an equivalent instrument. Initiatives and a first pilot context have been identified. Implementing and field-level counterparts are ready. And the conditions are documented in a launch plan.
Each operating unit decides for itself whether taking part is the right fit. Central governments are invited to support SaRCiSP and to encourage units to join, but the decision stays with the unit. Before any infrastructure is built, SaRCiSP carries out an analytical phase: assessing fit, selecting the operating unit, drafting a preliminary roadmap and engaging local counterparts. Terravive Group funds this early work with early sponsor and foundation support, in small tickets.
Work then moves in three phases, with education and public awareness running through all of them. First, SaRCiSP plans with each unit, finds what neighbouring units have in common and shapes a roadmap. Second come the lighter interventions: dryland restoration, reducing food-system losses, water stewardship, urban oases and waste management. Third comes heavier infrastructure, such as plastics processing and the conversion of organic waste into biogas, fertilizer and bio-based materials, where it is economically viable.
Two kinds of gate apply. One decides whether an operating unit joins. Others inside each unit follow the project execution framework, with escalation where a gate requires it. Operating units that have joined work in parallel, each at its own pace.
Neighbouring operating units cooperate in clusters, and each country has a Country Node. Both are described on the Clusters and Country Nodes page.