Publication

This paper discusses the traditional relations between businesses and NGOs and assesses their impact on sustainable development. The authors explain that historically, most relationships between the private sector and civil society, especially NGOs, have been founded upon conflict. Yet the paper also describes how in different sectors and geographical contexts, the conflictual patterns of business-NGO relations have started to change with the emergence of formal sustainable development partnerships between the previously long-standing adversaries. The authors provide a global overview of the changing nature of business-NGO relations on sustainable development and discuss several explicit examples.