How business leadership can advance Goal 17 on Partnership for the Goals
Partnership and cooperation are essential for achieving the Global Goals. The international community has encouraged the development of partnerships between stakeholders, including business, to achieve common goals. It is only by forging partnerships that leverage the core competencies of all partners that the ambition of the SDGs can be achieved.
Do your actions satisfy the Leadership Qualities?
Guiding Questions to apply to the Leadership Qualities to your business
Intentionality
Ambition
Consistency
Collaboration
Accountability
- Is your company committed to supporting the achievement of Goal 17? Have you developed a holistic strategy that reflects this commitment, covering end-to-end operation and the wider community?
- Are you committed to learn from your actions and do you have processes in place to improve them accordingly?
- Is your strategy supported by the highest levels of management, including the Board of Directors?
Key Considerations
An intentional, top-level strategic commitment to advancing Goal 17 sends a signal that can build the trust of other stakeholders. Without real commitment, partnerships often fail to achieve the full potential impact.
- Do your actions achieve long-term outcomes that greatly exceed those resulting from current industry practice?
- Are your actions aligned with what is needed to achieve Goal 17?
Key Considerations
Participating in a partnership alone does not satisfy the ambition quality. The contribution to the partnership should go beyond this, for example through initiating the partnership, chairing it, or making a contribution that lifts its impact to a significantly higher level.
- Is support for Goal 17 embedded across all organizational functions?
- Are staff and board incentives aligned with achieving Goal 17?
Key Considerations
Leading companies ensure that partnerships can build on capabilities from all parts of the organization. Full alignment of the organization further ensures that no countervailing actions erode impact and trust between partners.
- Do you proactively look for opportunities to partner with Governments, UN agencies, suppliers, civil society organizations, industry peers and other stakeholders to inform how to advance Goal 17?
Key Considerations
Partnerships should involve all relevant stakeholders, including those in potentially affected communities, to ensure there is a shared vision, joint ownership of the objectives, and mutual responsibility and accountability for achieving them.
- Do you publicly express your commitment to advance Goal 17?
- Do you identify, monitor, and report on impacts, including potentially adverse impacts?
- Do you mitigate risks associated with your action?
- Do you remediate negative impacts associated with this action?
- Do you engage stakeholders in a meaningful way?
Key Considerations
Partnerships should articulate their intended positive impacts and identify risks of any negative impacts that may also result, in particular on human rights. They should integrate processes to mitigate these risks and to monitor their success in doing so.
Business Actions
BUSINESS ACTION 1
Lead on responsible tax practices
BUSINESS ACTION 2
Finance sustainable development
BUSINESS ACTION 3
Partner to share knowledge
BUSINESS ACTION 4
Build capacity
BUSINESS ACTION 5
Lead partnerships
BUSINESS ACTION 1
Lead on partnerships to improve domestic resource mobilisation through responsible tax practices
Governments requires corporate tax revenues to advance the SDGs. At a minimum, therefore, businesses should comply with the tax laws and regulations in the countries in which they operate. They should adopt responsible tax practices, not engage in tax avoidance measures, and be transparent about their tax practices through country-by-country reporting. Going beyond this, companies can assume leadership on responsible taxation through partnerships with peers and Governments, responding to the need to create a just international taxation regime that minimises tax avoidance, and by supporting developing countries through providing capacity building to small local business regarding tax payment.
Example Practices
- An IT company establishes an initiative involving a wide range of relevant stakeholders, including Governments, taxpayers, NGOs and accountants, to develop a platform that can be used to collect, file and disburse tax revenue
- A private bank publicly publishes tax and profit data and provides explanations for each country of operation; it adopts the highest standards on responsible taxation and partners with industry peers to help them do the same
Consider the leadership qualities and interconnectedness of your action, including…
- Accountability: responsible engagement on tax policy involves pursuing a level playing field with other taxpayers, regardless of position and power. When engaging with developing country Governments, national development plans and priorities should be understood and supported.
- Consistency: for partnerships to be credible, companies need to practice and advocate responsible taxation across the entire organization and at all levels.
- Interconnectedness: supporting domestic resource mobilisation has great potential to advance Goal 10 on inequality, but the additional tax burden should not disproportionately fall on vulnerable groups in society and thereby impact negatively on human rights.
BUSINESS ACTION 2
Galvanize private sector finance to support sustainable development initiatives in developing countries
Companies can be sustainable development partners in developing countries, galvanizing private sector finance for investment including in infrastructure, essential services, and growing businesses while supporting a reduction in financial flows to unsustainable activities that, for instance, violate human rights or damage the environment. Partnerships for private sector finance can involve SMEs and large enterprises in all sectors, including, but not limited to, the financial sector. Along with financial resources, leading companies in such partnerships typically bring expert knowledge, skills, and access to advanced technologies. Foreign investments can also enable domestic industries to access international markets, linking them with multinational enterprises in the global value chain. The partnerships can contribute to addressing gaps in reporting of environmental and social risks, which is essential information for allocating finance to sustainable businesses.
Example Practices
- An investment bank leads an initiative under which it provides and facilitates green finance, including green project bonds, green asset-backed securities, and philanthropic funds as catalytic first-loss capital to promote investment in energy access. As part of the initiative the bank partners with the international initiatives and commercial and development finance institutions to raise $100 million to help provide clean cooking solutions to millions of households in the developing world
- A telecoms company in India collaborates with industry peers, and government department and ministries to sustainably undertake critical infrastructure investment in rural communities to enable affordable internet access, last mile connectivity and build fibre optics to foster development in the region
- Investment companies, working with the UNDP, support and capitalize a crowd funding platform that connects investors with solar power entrepreneurs in five Sub-Saharan African countries
Consider the leadership qualities and interconnectedness of your action, including…
- Accountability: embedding environmental and social safeguards, alignment with aid effectiveness principles and national development plans, responsible tax practices, and accountability frameworks for private finance such as the principles of responsible investment are essential for partnerships that galvanize private sector finance for sustainable development, especially in areas with high risk of negative impact.
- Interconnectedness: in partnerships to galvanize private sector finance, companies can significantly advance many Goals at once; but they should take steps to avoid reinforcing local inequalities (Goal 10).
BUSINESS ACTION 3
Lead on partnerships to develop and share new and existing technology, knowledge, and business models
The scale of the world’s sustainable development challenges requires strong partnerships of companies and relevant stakeholders to develop and share solutions for addressing them. These partnerships are key for wide deployment of technology, knowledge, and business models for sustainable development across all countries
Example Practices
- The scale of the world’s sustainable development challenges requires strong partnerships of companies and relevant stakeholders to develop and share solutions for addressing them. These partnerships are key for wide deployment of technology, knowledge, and business models for sustainable development across all countries
- An electric vehicles company makes its intellectual property freely available and forms partnerships with other automobile manufacturers to share research in support of an industry-wide transition to low-carbon road transport
- An electronics company establishes an industry-wide platform on ethical standards and forms partnerships with industry peers to facilitate coordination and develop innovative methods to track and address corruption
- A local telecommunications company also partnered with UNICEF and the government registration agency to put in place a system of birth registration
Consider the leadership qualities and interconnectedness of your action, including…
- Ambition: leadership requires that partnerships work towards solutions that yield real outcomes in line with what is required for achieving the SDGs.
- Accountability: partnerships must involve meaningful engagement with, and assessment of, the communities and natural systems that are impacted, to understand areas of need. They must identify and take steps to avoid adverse impacts on people and planet associated with their innovations.
- Interconnectedness: sustainable development solutions can spur new economic activity and value chain integration that creates jobs, but care must be taken that these jobs are decent and that innovations do not replace jobs in vulnerable areas (Goal 8) and create inequalities (Goal 10).
BUSINESS ACTION 4
Build regulatory, organizational, and staff capacity in developing countries
Companies can promote sustainable development through partnerships with developing country stakeholders to build local capacity. Capacity building can help close skills and institutional quality gaps. Such partnerships can equip employees and suppliers with knowledge and skills; support the development of organizational capacity of supply chain companies, public sector, and civil society counterparts; and facilitate the development of legal and regulatory frameworks.
Example Practices
- A multinational mining company works with multilateral institutions on various projects to improve governance and help reform the legal sector in an African country. This included bringing judges from the company’s home country to assist with the legal training of judges, modernizing the national juridical training center, and piloting programs aiming to improve the administration of, and access to, courts and legal services
- A consortium of small and medium enterprises partner to revitalize forest training centers in the South African Development Community region
- A multinational company provides comprehensive training and capacity building among the SMEs in its supply chain, which includes training on ways to incentivize responsible business conduct.
Consider the leadership qualities and interconnectedness of your action, including…
- Accountability: meaningful engagement with recipients of capacity building efforts is key to successful partnerships. This includes understanding and supporting national development plans and priorities.
- Interconnectedness: capacity building efforts can contribute positively to all SDGs. Care must be taken that existing inequalities are not exacerbated (Goal 10), and capacity-building work should help equip recipients to integrate respect for human rights into their own processes and practices.
BUSINESS ACTION 5
Lead on partnerships that address systemic challenges for achieving the SDGs
Collaboration is a key quality of all leadership on the Goals. But there is a range of deep systemic impediments to sustainable development that require inclusive, formalized, long-term partnerships that bring together and align critical drivers of change. Myriad systemic challenges that hold people back from realizing their human rights and development require such partnerships: child labour, poverty wages, denial of land rights, sexual violence, and discrimination are pertinent examples. Stewardship of our planet, including cross-border governance of natural resources, biodiversity, and the atmosphere, also requires these partnerships. Businesses can lead on partnerships addressing one or several systemic challenges by initiating, chairing, and/or making consistently significant contributions to them.
Example Practices
- A global beverage company is one of the key drivers of the Business Coalition Against Corruption in an African country, in partnership with numerous participants from the private and public sector and civil society. The company plays a leading role in the development of a code of business ethics in an African country, launched in conjunction with the UN Global Compact Local Network of that country
- A group of companies formed a coalition to advocate for amendments to a North American state’s civil rights act which would allow protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity
- A garment manufacturer partners with peers and other stakeholders to create an independent, legally binding agreement with trade unions, the Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh, designed to work towards a safe and healthy Bangladeshi Ready-Made Garment Industry. Its purpose is to enable a working environment in which no worker needs to fear fire, building collapses, or other accidents that could be prevented with reasonable health and safety measures
Consider the leadership qualities and interconnectedness of your action, including…
- Intentionality: partnerships must be intentional to drive the right levels of commitment over time and achieve a degree of formalization that is necessary to drive impact for the long term.
- Accountability: meaningful engagement with, and inclusion of, all relevant stakeholders is critical for partnerships to gauge all areas of need and address the root causes of systemic challenges. Clear targets with shared responsibility for action and mutual accountability for outcomes can significantly strengthen their success.
- Interconnectedness: systemic challenges often relate to a range of SDGs or even the entire 2030 Agenda. Partnerships should maximise the potential to advance all relevant SDGs, while minimising any risks of negative impact.
How taking action on Goal 17 is interconnected with other Goals
The Global Goals are inherently interconnected. Action taken toward one Goal can support or hinder the achievement of others. Identifying and addressing these interconnections will help business to build holistic and systemic solutions that amplify progress and minimize negative impacts. To help build a greater understanding, we have illustrated some of the ways in which the Goals connect. These are not exhaustive, and we encourage business to consider how they apply in their own operations.
Maximise likelihood of positive impact on:
Goal 17 is highly interconnected to all the other Goals. Goal 17 is cross-cutting, and its success undergirds the realization of the other 16 Goals.
Minimise risk of negative impact on:
Global partnerships to achieve the Goals should not reinforce inequalities. Funding, technology transfer and capacity building should be conducted in a way that promotes self-sufficiency and does not reinforce global inequalities (Goal 10). There are also may be bribery and corruption risks (Goal 16) associated with increasing financial flows and working with some Governments. Where partnerships lead to new economic activity, care should be taken that this does not negatively impact the environment, or the human rights of people involved in or affected by that activity.
Goal 17 Targets
Targets of Goal 17
- Strengthen domestic resource mobilization
- Mobilize additional financial resources for developing countries
- Adopt and implement investment promotion regimes for least developed countries
- Enhance North-South, South-South and triangular regional and international cooperation on and access to science, technology and innovation
- Promote the development, transfer, dissemination and diffusion of environmentally sound technologies to developing countries on favourable terms
- Develop effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels
- Enhance international support for implementing effective and targeted capacity-building in developing countries
- Enhance the global partnership for sustainable development
- Encourage and promote effective public, public-private and civil society partnerships
- Enhance capacity-building support to developing countries, including for least developed countries and small island developing States, to increase significantly the availability of high-quality, timely and reliable data
References
- SDG Compass
- UN Global Compact Industry Matrix
- Global Opportunity Explorer
- Navigating the SDGs: a business guide to engaging with the UN Global Goals
- Business for the Rule of Law Framework
- SDG Reporting - An Analysis of the Goals and Targets
- Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform, Goal 17
- The Tax Dialogue
- KPMG 'Responsible tax is everyone’s business'
- UNSG 'Trends in private sector climate finance'
- 'Oxfam 'Getting to good – Towards responsible corporate tax behaviour'
- Doing business with respect for human rights
