The Rise of Multistakeholder Partnerships

In the past two decades, multistakeholder partnerships have been on the rise. With the perceived failure of intergovernmental organisations to get things done, the international system has turned toward partnerships. Allowing for collaboration with private actors, they are increasingly seen as the governance model du jour. They’re praised for being democratically legitimate, thanks to their inclusion of a range of public and private stakeholders—most notably the inclusion of developing countries and civil society that had hitherto been excluded from international policy-making processes. My comments address three topics: (1) the rise of partnerships in context, (2) the reasons for their rise, and (3) challenges.