Multistakeholder Partnerships for Sustainable Development: Promises and Pitfalls

Abstract

This review examines the promises and pitfalls of multistakeholder partnerships (MSPs) for sustainable development. We take stock of the literature on the creation, effectiveness, and legitimacy of MSPs and focus on recent research on MSPs committed to achieving the 2030 Agenda and United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 2030 Agenda conceives of MSPs as vehicles to achieve large-scale sustainability transformations. Yet, research on MSPs under earlier sustainable development initiatives found that they had limited effectiveness and significant legitimacy deficits. We show that recent research on SDG partnerships suggests they reproduce many of the shortcomings of their predecessors and so are unlikely to foster synergies and minimize trade-offs between areas of sustainable development to deliver transformations on a global scale. We also examine recent research on the prospects of governing MSPs to enhance accountability and ensure better institutional designs for achieving transformations, highlighting challenges arising from international political contestation.