The sustainable development goals in South Africa: Investigating the need for multi-stakeholder partnerships

Abstract

Achieving the SDGs depends on partnerships between stakeholders, from government, the private sector, civil society, academic and research intuitions, and international agencies. The UN system provides governance and support from an international perspective; national government creates an enabling and monitoring environment for implemented; 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.