Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships for Implementing the 2030 Agenda: Improving Accountability and Transparency. Analytical Paper for the 2016 ECOSOC Partnership Forum

Abstract

This independent research paper was prepared for the 2016 ECOSOC Partnership Forum, commissioned by the UNDESA Office for ECOSOC Support and Coordination. A draft version was discussed during an Expert Group Meeting in February 2016.

The recent General Assembly resolution under the agenda item entitled “Towards global partnerships” requests the ECOSOC “to hold during its partnership forum to be held in 2016 a discussion on the best practices and ways to improve, inter alia, transparency, accountability and the sharing of experiences of multi-stakeholder partnerships and on the review and monitoring of those partnerships, including the role of Member States in review and monitoring.” (A/RES/70/224, para. 15) Consequently, the main purpose of this paper is to inform and stimulate this debate.

The structure of the paper is as follows: First, the paper defines and differentiates types of multi-stakeholder partnerships and then identifies research results regarding their successes and/or failures (part 1). Next, it briefly recaps the history of the UN’s involvement in those partnerships and points out recent developments in the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (part 2). The third part outlines a variety of options for improving the overall governance and specifically the accountability, transparency, and measurement of results of multi-stakeholder partnerships at the UN. Each section in this part starts with a review of the status-quo and an evaluation of recent research results and then outlines (alternative) options for further improvement. The last part attempts to stimulate the debate on how an integrated architecture and coherent process could look like.

Keywords: Partnerships, United Nations