Transnational Governane and Corporate Social Responsibility
Overcoming the Weaknesses of UN Public-Private Partnerships
“A call to companies to align strategies and operations with universal principles on human rights, labour environment and anti-corruption, and take actions that advance societal goals.” With these words the United Nations sets the tone for the UN Global Compact. According to the UN, this pact wants to create a worldwide movement in which businesses and stakeholders contribute to the realisation of policies with a greater role for sustainability and social responsibility. The Global Compact is just one example of UN’s attempts to involve cross-sectoral actors for the good cause. Key in these efforts is the public-private partnership; a collaboration between actors from government and business.
This type of multi-level governance “could” indeed be an opportunity to strive towards more effective policy making on important policy fields. We use the word “could” because at this moment, public-private partnerships are facing to many obstacles. In this opinion-editorial, we claim that it is yet too early to state that public-private partnerships are having a rather positive effect. The problems will be discussed briefly but we also point out to possible answers to overcome these issues.
Reporting, blue-washing and participation of non-democratic regimes
The first critique we have regarding the UN public-private partnerships is focused on the reporting, or let’s say the lack of reporting. However the UN argues that it is important that the partnerships publish reports on their cooperation, most of the partnerships are not submitting their reports in time or worse, not at all! This affects the level of transparency of these partnerships negatively. Reports allow the UN to fulfil its controlling, supervising duties and also enables outsiders to have a look at the results of the partnership. This lack of reporting harms the credibility of the partnerships in general.
Secondly, we fear that participation in UN partnerships is used as a blue-washing method for companies. The reason for firms to join partnerships and endorsing its targets can formally be because the companies see the urge of collective action taking. However, the motives for this participation could also be to improve the public image of the corporation. When companies apply for joining a partnership, there is no clear screening which enables business actors to misuse the partnership as a marketing tool.
Thirdly, in UN public-private partnerships governments play a major role. The UN states that the partnerships should protect and empower democratic values. When looking to the UN Democracy Index, we can conclude that almost 60% of all countries are not categorised as proper democracies. When keeping this in mind, how can it be possible that these non-democratic countries are carrying out partnership projects while they do not fit in the democratic framework of the UN? Public-private partnerships in these non-democratic countries are destined to become a farce.
Overcoming the problems
There are possible resolutions for the mentioned problems. In response to the issue of reporting, the power of the UN could be strengthened when it comes to ensuring reports are valid and submitted in time. Firstly, the UN should not only encourage its partners to report through sticks (penalties and exclusions) but also through carrots (rewards or recognising certificates). It could even fund the reporting process and the experts working on the paper. Secondly, the UN has to push a discourse that urges global citizens – customers – to pressure these actors to report. At the end of the day, clients and their needs are still on the top of influential factors in business. Ignoring these two possible solutions that are being offered, actors who are not obliged to submit reports will either become excluded or the partnership will come to an end. This would be problematic because partnerships are goals to be pursued, not to be repealed.
Regarding the blue-washing problem, the UN has to set up a thorough background-check before participation is accepted and ensure a partner can be banned and excluded when becoming obstructive or ignorant towards the rules of engagement. Finally, to resolve the democratic deficit, the UN should avoid establishing new partnerships in regions which are categorised as undemocratic. The UN must also increasingly incorporate democratic values in all its existing and prospective public-private partnership agreements. This would force all actors of the partnerships to respect the democratic values.
At this moment, the public-private partnerships of the UN are confronted by several problems. We believe the UN has to take action to resolve these obstacles. Otherwise, the transparent and democratic character of the partnerships will get lost and the credibility and effectiveness of the partnerships will be harmed negatively. The UN should take these concerns into consideration in order to continue the partnership programme in a satisfying, efficient and trustworthy way.
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