Collaborative partnerships are widely cited as a key solution to green growth; a way to address the Sustainable Development Goals and problems thrown up by globalisation. There is barely an environmental or developmental issue today for which there is not a multi-sector partnership. The rationale is simple – the complexity of green growth and the interdependency of the issues means that no single institution or sector can effectively respond to today’s challenges.
Partnership building is not as simple - the energy and enthusiasm around green growth partnerships can mask the difficulty of making them happen. It’s not easy bringing together individuals and organizations from the public and private sector with different cultures, interests, incentives, value systems and expectations. Effective partnerships manage these differences with a rigorous approach, underpinned by the right mindset and skillset.
This short paper has been written to help catalyse green growth partnerships: it outlines why partnerships matter; identifies what makes partnerships work; and explores how success can be achieved at scale and at speed. It draws on emerging findings from the Global Green Growth Forum (3GF) which has over 30 collaborative partnerships under its umbrella. This paper is a first effort to consolidate learnings across partnerships around water, energy, food and along the value chain.