Civil society organisations are regularly seen to name and shame companies for what they consider to be socially and environmentally unsustainable business practices within the companies’ own operations or in their supply chain. While there is a clear role for civil society to play in this regard, it also increasingly teams up with business to establish more sustainable value chains. Indeed, multi-stakeholder partnerships are central in the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. However, civil society and business have different interests and ways of working. Successfully collaborating is far from a simple exercise.

Therefore, this issue of Great Insights zooms in on civil society – business collaboration. We are delighted to present you articles from a diverse set of authors from civil society, business, development practitioners, academics and other experts. They come from Europe, Africa and beyond. Most importantly, they bring different perspectives on civil society – business collaboration for more socially and environmentally sustainable value chains. What does it take for civil society and business to pull in the same direction? And how can governments engage more effectively to facilitate such collaboration? The articles shed light on these questions.

We hope you will enjoy reading the winter issue of Great Insights, and welcome your comments and suggestions.

Guest editors

Jeske van Seters, Head of Programme Private Sector Engagement

 Poorva Karkare, Policy Officer Economic and Agricultural Transformation

Visit our dossier on business-civil society organisations (CSO) partnerships.