About BPD

Sustainable development is a global imperative, and strategic partnerships involving business, government and civil society may present a successful approach for the development of communities around the world. Building Partnerships for Development (BPD) is an informal network of partners that seeks to demonstrate that partnerships among these three sectors can achieve more at the local level than any of the groups acting individually.

Among the three groups, perspectives and motivations vary widely however, and reaching consensus often proves difficult. Different work processes, methods of communication and approaches to decision-making are common obstacles. When these tri-sector partnerships succeed though, communities benefit, governments serve more effectively and private enterprise profits.

BPD's mandate has been framed by the changing context of multi-sector partnerships around the world. As such, BPD will extend it's original time frame to continue to explore the possibilities that partnerships can bring to basic service delivery. For more details on BPD's mandate, see BPD Next Steps.

BPD Water & Sanitation used to be part of a wider, project-based initiative called Business Partners for Development. The initiative was set up to study, support and promote strategic examples of partnerships involving business, civil society and government working together for the development of communities around the world. 'BPD phase 1' comprised four 'clusters' - the Water and Sanitation Cluster (our previous incarnation), the Natural Resources Cluster, the Global Partnership for Youth Development and the Global Road Safety Partnership.