Transnational Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships for Sustainable Development: Building Blocks for Success

59 Pages Posted: 14 Aug 2014

See all articles by Philipp Pattberg

Philipp Pattberg

VU University Amsterdam

Oscar Widerberg

VU University Amsterdam - Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM)

Date Written: August 13, 2014

Abstract

Multi-stakeholder partnerships for sustainable development – institutionalized transboundary interactions between public and private actors aiming at the provision of collective goods – are a central element of contemporary sustainability governance, in particularly since the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). They have been credited with closing the participation and implementation gap in sustainable development but also accused of privileging powerful interests and thereby consolidating the privatisation of governance and dominant neo-liberal modes of globalisation.

This report has surveyed recent scholarship to provide an evidence-based assessment of the performance of multi-stakeholder partnerships for sustainable development with a view towards identifying the building blocks for successful and effective partnerships across a number of concrete implementation contexts and specific functions. While the overall aggregate performance of partnerships as a governance instrument is mixed at best, we identify and discuss nine building blocks that increase the likelihood for success: leadership, partners, goal setting, funding, management, monitoring, metagovernance, problem structure and socio-political context.

Keywords: multi-stakeholder partnerships, SDGs, UN, sustainable development

Suggested Citation

Pattberg, Philipp and Widerberg, Oscar, Transnational Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships for Sustainable Development: Building Blocks for Success (August 13, 2014). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2480302 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2480302

Philipp Pattberg (Contact Author)

VU University Amsterdam ( email )

De Boelelaan 1105
Amsterdam, ND North Holland 1081 HV
Netherlands

Oscar Widerberg

VU University Amsterdam - Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) ( email )

De Boelelaan 1115
Amsterdam, 1081 HV
Netherlands

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
565
Abstract Views
2,179
Rank
96,271
PlumX Metrics