The private sector in the development landscape: partnerships, power, and questionable possibilities

ABSTRACT

In introducing the Special Issue on The Private Sector in the Development Landscape this article focuses upon three key themes all related, in some manner, to the issue of power. These themes are drawn from the critique of partnership amongst conventional development actors and provide a framework for discussion of the six full-length articles and three shorter practice pieces that follow. The first theme for discussion is finance and the impact of its distribution within partnerships involving private and public / third sector actors. We then consider such partnerships in historical context, paying attention to the legacy of colonialism and global North-South dynamics. Finally, we explore the potential for power relations to be renegotiated within partnerships. Considering insights offered by the assembled authors and our own reading of the literature we suggest that partnership involving the private sector appears to do little in shifting development dynamics in a more egalitarian direction. Indeed, it may entrench underlying inequity. We conclude by questioning the extent to which the challenges of partnership with the private sector can be overcome without parallel efforts to bring greater accountability, transparency, and equity to the private sector's own activities, regardless of its engagement in development.

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to current convenors of the Development Studies Association Business and Development Study Group Ana Paula Borges Pinho, Helen Hawthorne, Luís Mah and Farwa Sial, and the Editors of Development in Practice, for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. The authors are also grateful to former Study Group convenors Peter Edward and Andrew Bowman, and to the former Editors of DiP – Brian Pratt and Adam Houlbrook - for suggesting the Special Issue and supporting us for much of the journey towards publication.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 See https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal17

2 DSA Business and Development Study Group Workshops, December 2017 and 2018; DSA annual conference panels (2017–2020) and Private Financing for Development Workshop, Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, November 2018 (the latter kindly funded by British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant ref. SRG\170255, 2018).

3 Adopted at the Third International Conference on Financing for Development

4 This view, of course, ignores the fact that by avoiding payment of their full tax liability many large corporations deprive governments of the funds that might otherwise be spent on overseas aid.

5 For a useful introduction, see Lund-Thomsen, Hansen, and Lindgreen (2019). For a review of the historical conditions under which the private sector gained increasing acceptance as a development actor see Black and O’Bright (2016).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jason Hart

Jason Hart is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social & Policy Sciences, University of Bath, and Programme Lecturer at the Centre for Children's Rights Studies, University of Geneva.

Jo-Anna Russon

Jo-Anna Russon is a Research Fellow at the School of Education, University of Nottingham.

Jessica Sklair

Jessica Sklair is a Research Fellow at the Margaret Anstee Centre for Global Studies, Newnham College, University of Cambridge.