Maldives Partnership Landscape Assessment

Achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), require a whole of government and whole of society approach to ensure that no one is left behind - a central promise of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

While the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is global, Maldives suffers particular and unique impacts due to the high exposure of its economy to external shocks. Both the World Bank and Asian Development Bank assess Maldives as being one of the worst hit in the world from the pandemic.

The 2030 Agenda Partnership Accelerator, in close consultation with the United Nations Resident Coordinators Office in Maldives and the Government of Maldives, is supporting a process to advance the implementation of the SDGs and build back better from COVID-19 by enhancing cohesion among sectors and stakeholders and inspiring new multi-stakeholder partnerships in Maldives.

The Maldives Partnership Landscape Assessment serves as a key input to this support. It is the result of an extensive consultative process with the government, the private sector, civil society organizations (CSOs), and external development partners that are supporting social, economic and environmental development in Maldives.

The assessment sets out to identify:

• National stakeholders involved in driving the SDGs in Maldives, including their level of engagement with the SDGs, and their potential resources towards developing inclusive partnerships

• Types of partnerships that exist in Maldives, and the level of engagement and support for partnerships among stakeholders and sectors

• Existing mechanisms for engaging stakeholders and sectors towards implementation of the SDGs in Maldives

• Thematic areas and issues with strong potential for developing new partnerships across stakeholders and sectors in Maldives, and with regional and global institutions and donors

The assessment is anchored around the five P’s of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Partnerships, People, Planet, Peace and Prosperity.

Overall, the exercise shows that there is a broad interest and willingness to partner among most of the stakeholders in Maldives. However, there is also a certain lack of trust in the process, which is driven by limited capacities within institutions to partner effectively. The understanding of SDGs and the value of partnerships to advance sustainable development among Government counterparts and private sector is also limited, which is hindering effective partnering nationally.