Country/Date: November 2018
Partner: PPPLab, Partnerships Resource Centre, Erasmus University

This paper presents the main lessons from Dutch-supported public–private partnerships (PPPs) in food security and water, based on four years of research by PPPLab.

It provides building blocks for making PPPs deliver on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with fundamental implications for key partners in PPPs and policymakers, both from the Netherlands and from other countries that share the SDG ambitions.

Partnerships are expected to address complex issues in challenging places. PPPLab found that Dutch-supported PPPs do rather well when it comes to pioneering innovative approaches, aligning interests, influencing the rules of the game, leveraging actors’ strengths and developing inclusive partnerships. However, the partnerships have to deal with high expectations from all sides.

What does it take for Dutch-supported PPPs to deliver on their promise of transformational change? They should:

  • strategize for systemic change,
  • improve partnerships’ fitness to enable change, and
  • rethink risk and combine resources.

This implies that the Dutch PPP approach needs to be recalibrated.

The paper was written by Marije Balt.  

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