ABSTRACT
As preparations for the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) were underway early in 2002, its architects launched an effort to promote the creation of multi-stakeholder partnerships that would implement spe-cific goals associated with sustainable development. The focus on these partnerships grew in part out of despair that conventional intergovernmental diplomacy was unlikely to bear fruit in Johannesburg and that some alternative outcome was necessary to provide the summit with a posi-tive result. But it also grew out of a deeper strategic un-derstanding, shared not only by key summit organizers but also by a broader network of actors involved in implement-ing sustainable development goals. This strategic under-standing of the importance of partnerships was based on a set of realizations that had emerged over recent years.
