2015 and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) — A unique opportunity, a unique responsibility and a unique challenge. There is no doubt that achieving the MDGs calls for extraordinary effort. The business as-usual approach will simply not do. To meet the challenges we need to come up with new and creative solutions and we need to identify solutions that have high impact and are measurable “Partnering for development” is one of the solutions which could help to gain and maintain the necessary momentum required to meet the goals. Pooling our resources, creativity and skills may enable us to reach better solutions.

We have started the process, but there is still work to be done. This section of website will hopefully serve as an introduction to the topic, briefly describing the global context and the conceptual as well as concrete reasons for the public and the private sectors to engage in partnerships. The main focus is on attempting to answer the question of why different actors should engage in partnerships. Even though partnerships are mostly multisectoral our emphasis will be on the public sector interest and the private sector interest.

Development is a very broad topic and so is corporate social responsibility. Part of the overlap between the two concepts is covered by the term ‘partnering for development’. With an increasing public interest in the topic of partnerships but so far with rather limited experience with the concept, this section has been created for those interested in this overlap. Hopefully it will be found interesting both by the business community and the development community.

As to the big question of whether partnering for development is able to deliver on the hopes and expectations, still remains to be seen. It holds potential and therefore deserves our efforts — or to put it differently: The MDGs face us with a task on a scale that is truly unprecedented and they hold such potential that we owe it to the less privileged of this world make every effort to achieve them.

For decades the international community has tried to improve the lives of people in developing countries. Sometimes it has been successful and at other times not. We have now reached the stage where good intentions and optimism have to be replaced by a development process which can bring about radical results – both qualitatively and quantitatively. More than 1.1 billion people survive on less than $1 a day, and more than half of the world living on less than $2 a day. In most cases people are deprived access to energy, water, health or services, and they are left in a situation where they cannot do anything about it themselves.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) provide a framework for action to address these issues and across the world the governments are committed to find new and more effective ways to ensure that we reach these goals. Increasingly the private sector is integrated into the solutions and the private sector recognizes the needs and the opportunities presented by the world’s poor people, who are also consumers.

The private sector thrives where society at large thrives, but in a world with so many poor people it can hardly be argued that the society is thriving. This is the essence of the vast overlap of interests between the public and the private sectors. Indeed there are differences but being explicitly aware of the differences may pave the way for new and more creative partnerships that will drastically accelerate the process of reaching the MDGs.

‘Let us choose to unite the power of markets with the authority of universal ideas. Let us choose to reconcile the creative forces of private entrepreneurship with the needs of the disadvantaged and the requirements of future generations.”

Kofi Annan, Former Secy General, United Nations at World Economic Forum, 1999

There is a growing recognition in the private sector that the developing world is critical to future business success. The growth in the number of consumers has huge market potential, which would be a great loss for the private sector if left unexplored. The development community has also come to recognize that the development agenda must be driven by developing countries themselves; local economic development is the only way that self-sustainability and growth can be achieved. According to the report of the Commission on the Private Sector and Development different actors bring with them specific resources, which can be used to enhance development through the contribution of different resources:
1) The private sector encourages the development of commercially sustainable business models that can be expanded and replicated;
2) The public sector promotes reforms of laws, regulations and other barriers to growth;
3) The public-private sector facilitates cooperation and partnerships between public and private players to enhance access to financing, skills and basic services.

When it comes to the distinction between the voluntary route and regulation this dichotomy is not as rigid as it may appear at first sight. For Open Forum bringing corporate social responsibility to the country level and stimulating business partnerships for development is a main priority. Practically, this includes facilitating dialogues between business and other key development stakeholders in particular governments and civil society, in order to build trust and social capital, and stimulate and develop concrete partnership activities.