GPPi to organize workshop on partnerships for sustainable development

On behalf of the Seed Initiative, and in collaboration with CIESIN (a unit of The Earth Institute at Columbia University) GPPi will organize a one-day workshop linking research and practice on partnerships for sustainable development during the upcoming CSD-meetings in New York. Partnerships involving governments, international organizations, corporations and civil society organizations have attracted much attention from researchers and policy makers. They continue to occupy a high profile in ongoing efforts to implement sustainable development objectives in a variety of contexts. Yet the body of usable knowledge concerning partnerships as a mechanism for achieving sustainable development goals remains weak. For which functions are partnerships especially well-suited? Under what conditions are partnerships likely to flourish? What internal processes and structures allow them to work effectively? Is the minimalist state of current accountability and transparency mechanisms a major problem or a minor nuisance? Should the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) play a major role guiding partnership development, or would more sector or region specific modes of organization be more effective? The specific objectives of the workshop are as follows:

• Share recent research results on sustainable development partnerships
• Outline planned future research directions
• Identify potential areas of collaboration
• Evaluate the salience of research findings against practitioner needs
• Identify priority research needs for the short, medium and long term
• Build a partnership research network to coordinate future activities.