Faultlines within Sectors in Partnership Executive Boards

This chapter examines how diversity within sectors, and not only differences between the public, private, and civil society spheres, influences governance inside global sustainability partnerships. Using faultline analysis, we study the executive boards of six Global Financing Partnerships in climate and health, combining information on sector, donor status, and professional background. The results show that important sub-groups form within sectors, which challenges the common assumption that sectors are internally coherent. These internal alignments affect collaboration and decision making and influence partnership effectiveness. The chapter highlights the need to account for internal heterogeneity when evaluating how partnerships work and what sustainability outcomes they achieve.

In Partnerships for Sustainability in Contemporary Global Governance