Putting Partnerships to Work: Strategic Alliances for Development Between Government, the Private Sector and Civil Society

The World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg clearly identified the corporate sector as one of the key actors in the delivery of national and international poverty reduction targets in developing countries. Partnerships between government, civil society and business were proposed as one means whereby these poverty reduction targets were to be achieved. Despite the rhetoric, there was less consideration of how such partnerships could work in practice, the outcomes that could be achieved, or the relative merits of partnerships over other, more traditional approaches to development.