Enhancing Partnerships Value: A Tool for Assessing Sustainability and Impact

In recent years, the relationship between the UN and the private sector – often strained by mutual suspicion and seemingly irreconcilable goals – has undergone a fundamental and historic transformation. We have discovered much common ground, recognizing that in an increasingly interdependent world, building partnerships and pooling complementary strengths is an important way of advancing UN goals while simultaneously driving business value.
As now more and more UN organizations enter into partnerships with business, important lessons are learned. Partnerships can significantly strengthen efforts to achieve our universal goals, but they often involve major investments in time and scarce resources. To ensure that future investments yield maximum benefit, it is necessary to identify and measure the degree to which partnerships deliver results and achieve positive impact. As it seems, many UN organizations have been advancing the partnership agenda without paying sufficient attention to assessing sustainability and impact. Now the time has come to professionalize the agenda and elevate partnerships to the next level of performance.