ABSTRACT
Academic thought about economic growth and sustainable development in the 21st century represents a breach with traditional thinking in many respects. One of the main changes is increased attention to the active role that firms (whether multinational corporations or local enterprises) can play in achieving development, either directly through corporate social responsibility (csr) activities or in the form of partnerships with non-governmental organizations (ngos) and/or governments. This mirrors the increasing awareness that not only governments should contribute to development (e.g. via official aid), but that all relevant actors in society can and should contribute to solving development problems. The modern development agenda is thereby more one of investment and business models than of subsidies and philanthropy. Partnering between public and private parties is thereby considered less of a luxury and more of a necessity to all of the actors involved. Austin (2000: 44) labeled partnerships as the “collaboration paradigm of the 21st century” needed to solve “increasingly complex challenges” that “exceed the capabilities of any single sector”. Sustainable development certainly represents such a challenge. This approach signals also a response to a number of the ‘failures’ linked to the previous phases of development thinking: governmental failure in achieving many of the official goals of development aid due to a lack of governance and appropriate institutional preconditions (in particular in sub-Sahara Africa), and civic failure in reaching the poorest parts of populations in a more or less efficient manner by development ngos (marking the inefficiency and the relative fragmentation of good intentions).
