Collaborative partnerships

Collaborative partnerships are agreements and actions made by consenting organizations to share resources to accomplish a mutual goal. Collaborative partnerships rely on participation by at least two parties who agree to share resources, such as finances, knowledge, and people. Organizations in a collaborative partnership share common goals. The essence of collaborative partnership is for all parties to mutually benefit from working together.

There are instances where collaborative partnerships develop between those in different fields to supplement one another’s expertise. The relationships between collaborative partners can lead to long term partnerships that rely on one another.

As Don Kettl writes, “From Medicare to Medicaid, environmental planning to transportation policy, the federal government shares responsibility with state and local government and for-profit and nonprofit organizations... The result is an extended chain of implementation in which no one is fully in charge of everything”(2001,p. 25)

Partnership and collaboration are often used inter-changeably, sometimes within the same paragraph or even sentence. Much use of the terminology is policy driven, giving way to the use of terms such as ‘joined-up thinking’ and ‘joined-up working’; for example, Every Child Matters (DfES 2004: 9) states that progress in improving educational achievement for children and young people in care and in improving their health has been possible through better joint working.

Collaborative arrangements occur based on more than just altruism. Mutuality and equitable engagement will not exist if southern partners expect developed countries to simply transfer their technological competitive advantage(Brinkerhoff 2002). A particular concern that arises in both for-profit and academic partnerships has been the failure to reap benefits of collaboration at meso- and macro-levels. While Southern researchers, inventors and managers involved in cross-border collaboration projects have benefited individually, these benefits do not translate to improvements in their organizations and institutions, possibly reflecting a problem of agency in the relationship (Alnuaimiet al. 2012). In general, partnerships for sustainable development are self-organizing and coordinating alliances. In a more strict definition; they are collaborative arrangements in which actors from two or more spheres of society- whether state, market, and civil society, are involved in a non-hierarchical process through which these actors strive for a sustainability goal (Glasbergen et al. 2007). In recent times, partnerships are set up to solve societal problems and they do so on the basis of a commitment that is formalized to some extent.

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