The Sustainable Development Goals in South Africa: Investigating the need for multi-stakeholder partnerships

ABSTRACT

Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) depends on partnerships between stakeholders from government, the private sector, civil society, academic and research institutions, and international agencies. The United Nations (UN) system provides governance and support from an international perspective; national government creates an enabling and monitoring environment for implementation; civil society creates advocacy and awareness; the academic and research community provides knowledge, technologies and innovation for implementation; and the private sector does much of the implementation towards achieving the SDG targets. These different roles and responsibilities imply that development objectives cannot be achieved in isolation. There is a need for integration and partnerships between the different role players. While partnerships do already exist, there is a call for interventions to strengthen them. Multi-stakeholder platforms are proposed as a mechanism to support and encourage partnerships, and to provide leadership on successful partnerships for achieving the SDGs. Any partnership established needs to be accountable, as well as people- and planet-centred.

KEYWORDS:

• Multi-stakeholders
• partnerships
• Sustainable Development Goals

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Lorren Kirsty Haywood http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9518-8023

Notes

1 The others focus on ending poverty, avoiding environmental degradation, promoting prosperity for all and fostering peaceful, just and inclusive societies (UN, 2015).

2 In their discussion document Towards a Social Compact for South Africa the NPC (2015:3) acknowledges that there are multiple definitions of a social compact but that there is ‘  … broad consensus in the South African discourse that the most beneficial will be one that includes the elements of a core agreement among various societal role-players and government which outlines the rights and duties of each party. The NDP identifies the importance of forging a social compact in dealing with collective problems ranging from labour market policy to spatial planning’.

3 The results of this study draw from interviews with 40 individuals working in senior positions within entities involved in public–private partnerships in South Africa. They included the private sector (investment banks, operating companies, construction companies and transaction advisors), implementing agencies (line departments, provincial and municipal governments) and government agencies responsible for public–private partnerships (National Treasury and Municipal Infrastructure Investment Unit) (Castalia Strategic Advisors, 2007).

4 A study undertaken by PWC (2016) reveals that awareness of the SDG's among the business community is 87%, which is high when compared to the general population (28% of citizens are aware of the SDG's).