Jane Nelson

Over the past two decades we have witnessed a dramatic growth in the number, diversity and reach of new forms of public-private partnership, cross-sector alliances and virtual networks. These range from multi-million dollar transnational coalitions and collaborative relationships along global supply chains to millions of low budget community-based initiatives. Many are a response to complex public problems and systemic challenges that are beyond the capacity and resources of any one sector.

Whether it is achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and poverty reduction, or efforts to tackle climate change, protect human rights, improve working conditions, overcome corruption, resolve conflict or respond more effectively to humanitarian disasters, governments at all levels are exploring new ways to engage with non-state actors − ranging from companies and business associations to civil society organizations and trade unions. As a result, non-state actors are now engaged to an unprecedented degree in many activities and issues traditionally considered the preserve of government and intergovernmental organizations.

The partnerships and alliances that are evolving are mobilizing new players and resources for international development. They are also spearheading a new era of technical, financial and institutional innovation.¹ In some cases, partnerships are led or catalyzed by governments and official donors operating in non-traditional ways. In others, they are being driven by a combination of markets, technology, corporate responsibility initiatives, social enterprise, strategic philanthropy, privately-funded research, celebrity status and civic activism. In almost all cases, they involve new types of cooperation and collective action across the traditional boundaries of public, private and civil society sectors.

A wide variety of structures and objectives

In some cases, these emerging partnerships constitute a new legal entity with its own governance structure and operations. There are now over 20 global public-private health partnerships, for example, bringing together hundreds of organizations to research, fund and advocate for improved global health outcomes. Examples include the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition.

In other cases, these cross-sector partnerships consist of specific programmes, projects or campaigns between an official donor agency, foundation or corporation and a variety of new players. UN agency examples include the UN Fund for International Partnerships (UNFIP), UNIDO’s Cleaner Production Centres, UNEP’s Billion Tree Campaign, UNHCR’s NineMillion.org project and UNDP’s Growing Inclusive Markets initiative, which are all being undertaken with corporate, NGO and foundation partners.

Many partnerships take the form of more informal, non-contractual global coalitions and networks. In such cases, legally and operationally autonomous players cooperate around a common cause or issue, usually enabled by information technology and the media or by common donors and investors.  Examples include the Make Poverty History, Publish What You Pay and ONE campaigns and the C40 coalition of cities to tackle climate change.

The objectives of these new types of partnership are as varied as their structures. According to Harvard Professor John Ruggie public-private partnerships serve a broad spectrum of objectives and may fall into more than one of the following categories:

• Advocacy – promoting a cause or placing an issue on the policy agenda;
• Operational – providing project support, resource mobilization and service delivery to meet discrete needs;
• Capacity Building – developing skills, institutional means and resource bases for sustainable problem-solving;
• Normative – setting and diffusing norms and standards; and
• Joint Regulation – bridging governance gaps and overcoming governance failures.²  

Where are partnerships headed?

There can be little doubt that cross-sector partnerships, alliances and networks have become an increasingly influential feature of the international development landscape. It is difficult to imagine a return to approaches that fail to harness the skills and resources of different sectors. When such partnerships are effective they can help to achieve greater efficiency, increase legitimacy, and improve the leverage and impact of development efforts. Yet, these partnerships are not an answer to every problem. Nor are they easy to establish and sustain, let alone scale up. They face a variety of strategic and policy-related challenges, as well as operational obstacles.³ And many fail to live up to their expectations. Growing attention is being paid to understanding the transaction costs associated with building such partnerships, as well as their development impact, accountability and scalability.

It is still “early days” for most partnership-based approaches to development. Most of these cross-sector initiatives simply did not exist a decade ago. In one of the most comprehensive impact assessments undertaken to date, the World Bank reviewed its portfolio of approximately 70 global programmes, all of which involve a variety of public, private or civil society participants in their funding, governance, or programme delivery activities.⁴ It carried out in-depth analysis of 26 of these programmes which represented 90 percent of all the Bank’s global programme expenditures in 2004. Only six of these have been in existence for more than 10 years.

The Bank’s evaluation concluded that while most of these public-private partnerships have been innovative and responsive to addressing selected development challenges, and several have added measurable value, there are weaknesses that need to be addressed in terms of their governance, management, financing and, particularly, the level of participation in decision-making by developing country governments and intended beneficiaries.

In another comprehensive study focused on 23 global public-private health partnerships, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) also concluded that while partnerships add significant value in tackling diseases of poverty, their contribution is undermined by some common and solvable accountability challenges.⁵ These include insufficient participation in decision-making by recipient countries and beneficiaries, inadequate use of critical governance procedures, failure to compare the costs and benefits of public versus private approaches, high transaction costs for managing the alliances, lack of partnership building skills, and wastage of resources through inadequate use of existing country systems.

It is increasingly clear that addressing these challenges will be essential to ensuring the future usefulness and effectiveness of cross-sector partnerships as a development tool. This will require greater leadership and action in the following four areas:

(i) Partnership-building tools, skills and “good practices”

Although the tools, training and guidelines for building effective cross-sector partnerships have come a long way in the past decade, more analysis, sharing of good practice and capacity-building efforts are needed, especially at the country level. Recent initiatives point the way forward. The UN System Staff College, for example, is working with the Partnering Initiative − itself an alliance between the International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) and Cambridge University − on the Partners in Action programme. This programme is implementing a variety of country and sector-specific capacity-building initiatives to help ensure that UN-business partnerships achieve greater reach and scale (www.unssc.org). The IBLF also works with ODI to deliver a Partnerships Brokers Accreditation Certificate, aimed at building the skills of people who can act as intermediaries in building cross-sector alliances (www.thepartneringinitiative.org). The UN Global Compact has also worked with organizations such as Dalberg Global Development Advisors and the Boston Consulting Group to develop and disseminate good practice examples, lessons and guidelines for building effective partnerships. 

(ii) Partnership impact assessment and accountability

There is also a need to improve both the quantity and quality of partnership evaluations. Few rigorous impact assessment tools exist, and there are even fewer frameworks for analaysing the accountability of cross-sector partnerships. The UN Global Compact’s recently launched Partnership Assessment Tool is one model worth increased attention and use (www.unglobalcompact.org). Another relevant initiative is AccountAbility’s Partnership Governance and Accountability (PGA) project.  Initiated in 2006, in collaboration with a variety of academic, development and civil society organizations, PGA views partnership accountability as consisting of three layers: being held to account (compliance); giving an account (transparency); and taking account (responsiveness to stakeholders). The project has undertaken an analysis of nine multi-sector alliances, which cover a range of development challenges and sectors. It is also developing and testing a diagnostic rating tool to enable better analysis and communication of a partnership’s governance and accountability structures, processes and norms. It is envisaged that over time this tool will be helpful to both participants and stakeholders in improving the performance of multi-sector partnerships and coalitions (www.accountability.org).

(iii) Partnership intermediaries and focal points 

Given the strategic and operational challenges associated with building effective cross-sector partnerships and the growth in such partnerships, there is the need for dedicated institutional structures and management systems within major development agencies, government departments, corporations and civil society organizations that have a clear mandate and sufficient resources to act as intermediaries or focal points between the organization and its potential myriad partners. The UN Global Compact and UNFIP partly play this role within the UN system, although they would benefit from greater authority and support to coordinate partnership standards, initiatives and lessons across the system. Some development agencies are also establishing dedicated partnership evaluation units, such as the World Bank’s recently created Global Programmes and Partnership Council.

(iv) Building partnership capacity and intermediaries in developing countries
 
Ultimately, the test of partnership effectiveness and impact is on the ground, in the developing countries, communities, households and enterprises where the development needs and hopes are greatest. Yet, as the research by the World Bank and ODI has indicated, all too often developing country governments − let alone businesses and NGOs − don’t have a place at the table when it comes to structuring and implementing cross-sector partnerships. As such, it is essential that efforts in all three of the above areas include a focus on engaging and building the capacity of players from developing countries. Initiatives, such as the UN Global Compact’s country-level networks, the alliance between IBLF and GTZ to build partnership capacity among selected African governments, and UNDP’s China-Africa Business Council, offer models for the way forward, but much more effort is needed in this area.  

In summary, there is every indication that cross-sector partnerships are here to stay. The development challenges are too great and complex, and the resources and capacities for tackling them too dispersed among different sectors, for any one sector to have the necessary answers, capabilities or legitimacy to find solutions on their own. Governments must continue to play a central and accountable role, but business and civil society are likely to be increasingly important development actors and partners. Despite the strategic and operational obstacles associated with building new types of partnership between non-traditional allies, if they can be made to work, such partnerships can be a powerful force for change and a vital tool for delivering more effective development solutions. They merit increased support and investment from leaders in all sectors and, at the same time, increased attention and rigour in terms of analysis, impact assessment and capacity building.

Jane Nelson is Director of the Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative and a Senior Fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard University. She is a Director of the International Business Leaders Forum and a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. In 2001 she worked in the office of the UN Secretary-General and with the Global Compact preparing a report for the General Assembly and a book on partnerships between the UN and the private sector.   

Endnotes:
1. Nelson, Jane. New Development Players and Actors: Affecting Change through Accountable Channels. Paper prepared for Brookings-Blum Roundtable on Global Poverty, Aspen, August 2, 2007. 
2. Presentation by Professor John Ruggie on The UN and Public/Private Partnerships, at UN Senior Officials Retreat, UN System Staff College, Turin, September 2, 2007. 
3. Nelson, Jane. Building Partnerships: Cooperation between the United Nations Systems and the Private Sector. UN Department of Public Information, 2002.
 and
Witte, Jan Martin and Reinicke, Wolfgang. Business Unusual: Facilitating United Nations Reform through Partnerships. The UN Global Compact and the Global Public Policy Institute, 2006.
4. Addressing the Challenges of Globalization: An Independent Evaluation of the World Bank’s Approach to Global Programs. Operations Evaluation Studies Unit, the World Bank Group, 2005.
5. Global Health: Making Partnerships Work. Briefing paper 15. Overseas Development Institute, 2007.