1. To many people today, the remedy for bad government is simple: governments should hand over their activities to the private sector, which will do a far more efficient job. Partnerships are not necessary, they say, only hand-over. In this paper we will argue that this is only part of the answer, that governments will have a larger role to play in the future and that they will play that role increasingly in collaboration with the private sector.
2. Public-private partnership implies a common understanding of shared goals, a willingness to repartition responsibilities for their achievement, a continuing public-private dialogue on what needs to be done to promote their realization, and a supportive policy and institutional framework. Partnership goes beyond business concerns, and extends into all policy areas, including education, health, human rights, immigration and citizenship, science and technology, foreign relations, arts and culture. There is a widespread trend to broaden participation in governance by strengthening the interface between the state and non-state actors.
3. This has important political dimensions. In its resolution 50/225 of 19 April 1996, the General Assembly reaffirmed that democracy and transparent and accountable governance are indispensable foundations for the realization of social and people-centred sustainable development. Participation reinforces democracy by making the government more responsive to users of government services and to citizens generally, and making government more open, transparent and accountable. New machinery is set up such as administrative tribunals, ombudsman offices, joint committees, and charters of the rights of citizens (or users, "clients" or "customers" of government services), which tend to make the government agencies which have immediate relationships with the public more accountable and answerable to those affected by their activities. This "direct" accountability complements the indirect accountability of agencies via the political directorate to legislative bodies and heads of State and, in democratic regimes, to electorates.
4. This paper looks at partnership in the pursuit of national economic goals, with a focus on some innovative examples of partnership, and some of the main issues arising. The paper is divided into four main sections, which deal respectively with increasing opportunities in the private sector, the business-enabling environment, promotion of competition and social regulation, and a final section which briefly touches on the role of the international community with regard to the foregoing.