Abstract
Recent scientific reports highlight the urgent need for transformations to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and long-term sustainability. This paper presents a new approach to partnerships that focuses on their role in transformations, the types of partnerships that may be needed and their enabling environment. It introduces transformation effectiveness as a criterion to evaluate a portfolio of partnerships and pathways as a tool to frame discussion of required partnerships. Guided by energy decarbonization and using a simple model of partnership formation, I highlight a (potential) mismatch between the types of partnerships required for transformation and the partnership types arising under the currently dominant voluntary approach. The model suggests the bottom-up approach can deliver some, but not all, of the partnerships needed. Five specific problems are identified—compensation for losers, partnering capacity, short-time horizons, inadequate coordination mechanisms and misaligned incentives. The paper then outlines some policy tools—transfers, regulation, public investment—governments could use to strengthen the bottom-up framework and orchestrate missing partnerships. The conclusion addresses two problems specific to the transformation approach: how to identify more systematically the partnerships needed (identification problem) and how to implement them (implementation problem); and outlines some ways to deal with these—science, deliberation, international leadership coalitions and frameworks/monitoring systems for transition partnerships.
Highlights
Several recent scientific reports from international agencies highlight that global development is moving dangerously along the wrong path [1,2,3,4,5,6,7], and it is increasingly recognized that transformations are urgently needed in a range of areas to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and long-term sustainable systems [8,9,10,11,12,13]
There is a need to understand better whether a “laissez-faire” approach to partnerships can succeed in delivering the types of partnerships required for transformation and whether, and to what extent, partnerships may need to be orchestrated, and if so, which entity is most appropriate for orchestrating
I indicate a mismatch between the types of partnerships required for transformation and those emerging under a bottom-up approach
Summary
Several recent scientific reports from international agencies highlight that global development is moving dangerously along the wrong path [1,2,3,4,5,6,7], and it is increasingly recognized that transformations are urgently needed in a range of areas to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and long-term sustainable systems [8,9,10,11,12,13]. This paper develops a model to assess the bottom-up approach to enabling partnerships and introduces transformation effectiveness as a new criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of a portfolio of partnerships It uses the case of energy decarbonization to suggest types of partnerships that might be needed in different parts of the transformation. Non-government actors can help alleviate these problems in a number of ways, the paper focuses on governments’ role in mobilizing missing partnerships, whose unique assets: resources, policy capabilities, legitimacy, longer time-horizon; may be especially relevant if transformation requires the mobilization of partners and partnerships on a large-scale. The paper concludes by discussing two problems specific to the transformation approach: how to identify—more systematically—partnerships needed (identification problem) and how to implement them (implementation problem), suggesting ways to address these—roles for science, deliberation, leadership coalitions and frameworks/monitoring systems for transition partnerships. The paper suggests progressive governments, those less captured by losers and those leading on the SDGs, should improve partnership frameworks and orchestrate missing partnerships
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