Executive Summary

Having developed in the shadow of traditional multilateralism, GPP networks are protean things, difficult to define or typologize. This is so precisely because they have grown up largely independently of each other to serve widely differing purposes. They do, however, have a few things in common. One common denominator is that they link together interested individuals and institutions not only from diverse countries but also from diverse sectors of activity: local, national, and regional governments; transnational corporations and other businesses and their associations; and what has come to be called civil society. They thus cut cleanly across the fault lines between various sectors, existing organizations, and sovereign territories. Another commonality is that all these networks have made intense and often ingenious use of the new information technologies that for several decades have been transforming our workplaces, our markets, and many of our other social institutions. These "trisectoral" networks have already proved themselves to be effective, often remarkably so, in bringing together diverse and sometimes opposing groups to discuss common problems that no one of them can resolve by itself; and in marshaling resources -- intellectual, financial, physical -- to bring to bear on those problems. 

ORIGINS AND OBJECTIVES

Broadly speaking, GPP networks emerged as a response to two dynamic forces that took shape and spread throughout the world in the late 20th century. The first is liberalization, both economic and political. Economic liberalization, by opening markets, increasing competition, and encouraging the spread of capital, skills, and know-how worldwide, promises to raise standards of living in those countries that have embraced it. But the rapid dismantling of barriers to trade and capital flows has also had negative spillover effects, of which the recent financial crises in East Asia, Latin America, and the Russian Federation are prominent examples. At the same time, political liberalization in many countries has brought greater democracy to millions who long yearned for it, but it has also brought greater complexity to political and social issues and interactions. 

The second broad force driving change is the technological revolution, and in particular the revolution in information technology. Technological change, too, has had immensely beneficial effects on the way we interact in commerce, public affairs, and society. But it has also made social, cultural, and economic relations far more complex and intertwined -- and harder to predict and stabilize -- and the pace of that change has clearly outstripped the ability of governments to manage the rapid consequences of the succession of technological advances. 

The negative effects of these two sweeping forces on institutions of global governance may be characterized in terms of two governance gaps. First, an operational gap has opened up wherever policymakers and public institutions have simply found themselves lacking the information, knowledge, and tools they need to respond to the daunting complexity of policy issues in a liberalizing, technologizing, globalizing world. Second, but related to the first, a participatory gap has manifested itself as this same increasing complexity thwarts common understanding of, and therefore agreement on, critical policy issues. This has sometimes led policymakers, intentionally or not, to exclude the general public or particular stakeholders from their deliberations. 

GPP networks have lately emerged as a "growth industry," precisely as a way of bridging these gaps. GPP networks are learning organizations. Their broad membership allows them to tap information and expertise from a variety of backgrounds, thus providing a more complete picture of particular policy issues and giving voice to previously unheard groups. These networks are meant to complement public-policy institutions, not replace them. They help governments and multilateral agencies manage risks, take advantage of opportunities presented by technological change, be more responsive to their constituents, and promote change within bureaucracies. 

A RANGE OF ACTIVITIES

GPP networks address governance gaps by performing a variety of diverse functions. This report highlights six of the most important of these, although, again, no simple typology can do justice to the full range of network activities. Most of the networks perform several of these activities, but each network does not necessarily perform all or even most of them: 

• GPP networks get involved in placing new issues on the global agenda or raising the prominence of issues that have been neglected. All such networks do this to some degree, but one type of network -- what has been called a transnational advocacy network -- makes global consciousness-raising its primary objective. Advocacy networks often excel at making strategic use of the media and influential individuals. They typically articulate clear and narrowly focused goals for their activities and frame their chosen issue in a way that will have maximum impact, often by couching it in the language of a moral imperative. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines is a model of a global network that concentrated on a single issue and waged a successful media campaign to raise awareness of the problem and move toward its resolution.
• GPP networks facilitate the negotiating and setting of global standards. This is happening in areas as diverse as financial regulation and environmental management. Whereas agenda-setting often can be accomplished by a relatively few dedicated individuals, the complexity of negotiating and setting standards, as well as concerns of fairness and equity, typically requires the involvement of stakeholders from all sectors on a representative basis. Trisectoral networks can help overcome stalemates in highly conflict-ridden policy arenas. The World Commission on Dams (WCD) is a prototypical example: this network has managed to break the deadlock among development planners, contractors, and environmental groups over the building of large dams. It shows what can be accomplished with a truly trisectoral structure in terms of both membership and funding. Through case studies, a review process, and various consultations, the WCD aims to assist future decision-making on the planning, design, monitoring, and operation of large dams.
• Networks are natural mechanisms for gathering and disseminating knowledge, and some GPP networks make this their principal activity. The information technology revolution allows all kinds of knowledge, technical and nontechnical, to be shared without regard for distance or borders and at ever-lower cost. Networks that focus on this kind of activity tend to be especially successful when they link participants with access to various knowledge bases and when all participants are willing to rethink their own ideas and practices -- to learn and relearn as well as to teach. One of the oldest global networks, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), has contributed enormously to the discovery and worldwide propagation of new crop strains and farming techniques. Yet this well-established network has shown the flexibility to expand its purview to issues of sustainable production systems and has adopted a strong poverty focus. CGIAR has also created new institutional forms to increase the participation of stakeholders from all three sectors and respond to other challenges.
• GPP networks may also have a commercial dimension -- making new markets where they are lacking and deepening markets that are failing to fulfill their potential. Left to their own devices, markets sometimes fail to produce certain goods -- public goods -- that the broader public interest demands. GPP networks can help bridge this gap between demand and supply. The Medicines for Malaria Venture, for example, is a global network that seeks to improve the economic incentives for pharmaceutical companies to develop badly needed new antimalarial vaccines. Networks, by providing links to other sources of both finance and information about best practice, are also helping a host of microlending enterprises in developing countries to improve and expand their operations.
• Some GPP networks are designed specifically as innovative implementation mechanisms for traditional intergovernmental treaties. The Global Environment Facility has increasingly turned to trisectoral networking to achieve its mission of funding and implementing worthy projects in the area of environmental protection.

THE CARE AND TENDING OF NETWORKS

This description of GPP networks may foster the impression that networks sprout and grow almost naturally when the need for them arises and the circumstances are propitious. And sometimes, in a sense, they do. Networks are nothing if not situational and opportunistic. But that does not mean they do not need careful cultivation and nurturing. Managing a network requires skilful social entrepreneurship, flexibility, imagination, and the ability to learn on the fly. 

Perhaps most important, those who would presume to manage a network must first understand that it is seldom they, the managers, who will develop the solution to the problem that the network was formed to address. More often it is the stakeholders themselves who find the answers. But network managers play several critical roles, including that of managing the tensions and conflicts that inevitably arise from a committed search among disparate parties for solutions to real problems, and doing so in a way that keeps the participants engaged. Some of the functions that might appear in a network manager's job description are listed below: 

• Getting the network off the ground -- The first task, of course, is getting the network up and running. Often it is the vision, dynamism, and resolve of one or a few individuals -- like Kadar Asmal, in the case of the WCD, or US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, with the Apparel Industry Partnership -- that provide the spark for a new network. In other cases the needed leadership is institutional: an example is the World Health Organization's role in launching the Roll Back Malaria initiative. Would-be founders of a network must concentrate on getting the network dynamics right from the start, which means getting the right people on board and creating a common, shared vision. They must also make sure that participants recognize their dependence on each other and on innovative collective thinking to solve the problem at hand. The leaders must take pains not to allow the network to become too closely tied to themselves or another individual or institution; rather, they must be willing, even eager, to share power and to "lead from behind."
• Balancing adequate consultation and goal delivery -- A second challenge is getting the process right while getting the product out the door. It is important to allow for extensive consultation and discussion, especially in the start-up phase and when the participants have heretofore been adversaries or competitors. This gives legitimacy to the network process -- but it also risks delay in achieving the results that the participants and their constituencies demand. Networks can help keep their efforts on the rails by setting "milestones" against which to measure their progress. They can also sometimes engineer "easy wins" that help to satisfy their constituencies while allowing longer incubating work to proceed.
• Securing sustainable funding -- All networks, even the most ad hoc and ephemeral, absorb resources, and resources cost money. Therefore, ensuring adequate funding for the network's activities is an inescapable task for network managers. Also, the manner in which funding is obtained is vital for the network's credibility and sustainability. Often, support needs to be trisectoral in nature, rather than coming from a single donor or sector, although this is less important for some networks, such as those whose primary purpose is implementation.
• Maintaining the "structure" in structural informality -- Networks must avoid falling into the trap of becoming just another institution with an established bureaucracy and a rigid hierarchy. Network managers must therefore focus on maintaining "structured informality" -- on keeping relationships loose and unconfining while building in enough organization and framework to get things done. One way to dodge the institutional trap is to build the network on existing institutions, keeping the network's own secretariat to a minimum. Built-in review processes, internal and external, can also help prevent ossification of the network's structures, practices, and people.
• Finding allies outside one's sector -- A useful strategy in fostering networks and their goals is to actively look for possible alliances across sectors. Sectors, after all, are not monolithic, and sometimes intrasectoral divides create opportunities for innovative intersectoral networking, where people and institutions in diverse sectors can find common ground.
• Tackling the dual challenge of inclusion -- Even in a world where political liberalization and technological change have made it far easier than before for people to connect, inclusion of all interested parties in a network's activities remains difficult. Much of a network manager's efforts relate to tackling the dual challenge of local-global and North-South inclusion, that is, bringing local interested parties into the global dialogue and bringing stakeholders in developing countries into a process that tends to be dominated by industrial-country elites. But inclusion is crucial to a network's legitimacy and accountability, as well as important on a normative basis. It is also a practical imperative: networks often need local people and institutions to implement their decisions on the ground. Networks have pursued various strategies to achieve greater inclusion. They can define and pursue multiple levels of engagement, for example by establishing organizations at the national level whose deliberations feed into the global network. They can establish structures that institutionalize inclusion, such as representative-voting arrangements and innovative funding mechanisms. They can build on existing initiatives and approaches, working from the bottom up. Or they can do the opposite, adapting global policies to fit local realities. Finally, networks can help build up the limited financial and organizational capacity of those local and developing-country actors whose inclusion they seek, such as by providing access to information technology, expertise, or direct funding.

The leadership of the United Nations has begun to place the idea of GPP networks at the forefront of its vision and strategy. In his 1999 address to the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan observed the following: 

The United Nations once dealt only with governments. By now we know that peace and prosperity cannot be achieved without partnerships involving governments, international organizations, the business community, and civil society.

The Secretary General's Millennium Report -- We, the Peoples: The Role of the United Nations in the 21st Century, in support of which this publication was written -- points out the importance of global public policy networks in redefining the role of the UN: 

Formal institutional arrangements may often lack the scope, speed and informational capacity to keep up with the rapidly changing global agenda. Mobilizing the skills and other resources of diverse global actors, therefore, may increasingly involve forming loose and temporary global policy networks that cut across national, institutional and disciplinary lines. The United Nations is well situated to nurture such informal "coalitions for change" across our various areas of responsibility. 

The United Nations has been involved in many of the networks discussed in this report. However, it has yet to develop a strategic approach on how best to coordinate its efforts to engage in GPP networks. This report proposes a three-track approach that is both visionary and feasible: 

• Strengthen and consolidate existing networks by focusing on implementation and learning processes;
• Build implementation networks that will help to revitalize weak or weakening conventions that are important to the UN's mission; and
• Launch new networks where they are needed.

• The organization can act as convenor by, for example, organizing meetings on issues where conflicts occur across the North-South divide;
• UN agencies can act as providers of a platform and a safe space for negotiations and the development of consensual knowledge;
• Staff can act as social entrepreneurs, using the skilled leadership of top UN officials but also focusing on inclusion, effectiveness, and results at the operational level;
• UN agencies can act as norm entrepreneurs in such areas as sustainable human development, human rights, and disarmament;
• UN agencies can act as multilevel network managers by coordinating program activities or developing strategies for interacting with appropriate levels of governance;
• UN agencies can act as capacity-builders to ensure inclusiveness, both from a local-global and a North-South perspective; and
• Despite increasing difficulty, in some rare cases the United Nations can act as financier for operational programs.

The Administrative Committee on Coordination and the United Nations Development Group are two venues within the UN system that could complement each other's activities to fulfill the many tasks that successful network management, including implementation, requires. In addition, a clearinghouse could be set up to act as an information hub for network activities, both within the United Nations and beyond. For the United Nations to become an active player in GPP networks, it needs to reach out to its external partners. One stepping-stone to improving relations and entering into a constructive strategic dialogue with key actors from nongovernmental organizations and the business community would be to develop the Global Compact on a trisectoral basis. By making itself a safe place for all the key actors to convene to negotiate politically controversial issues, the United Nations could fill a major gap in governance. 

CONCLUSIONS

The United Nations faces a set of critical choices. The world organization needs to pay attention to its ability to offer itself as a safe place, not only for its traditional stakeholders -- member governments -- but also for the business community and civil society. Trisectoral networks provide the United Nations with a mechanism to rebuild its credibility and, indeed, the only way to achieve its increasingly complex missions with scarce resources in the 21st century. The organization's ability to effectively initiate, maintain, and participate in such networks will largely determine the extent to which it can achieve its mission -- not least in the eyes of its constituents. 

By successfully engaging in GPP networks, the United Nations performs a vital service to its member states. For it is they that are ultimately strengthened by these networks' activities. It is crucial for member states of the United Nations to understand that GPP networks are meant, not to replace governments, but to complement them. Networks help member states take advantage of the benefits and address the challenges of technological change and economic and social integration and thus perform their duties to their citizens in a more effective and legitimate way. GPP networks represent a unique opportunity for governments to regain the initiative in the debate over the future of global governance. 

GPP networks embrace the very forces of globalization that have confounded and complicated traditional governance structures, challenging the operational capacity and democratic responsiveness of governments. They are distinctive in their ability to bring people and institutions from diverse backgrounds together, often when they have been working against one another for years. Making use of the strength of weak ties, networks can handle this diversity of actors precisely because of the productive tensions on which they rest. GPP networks do not offer an easy ride, but the difficulties are well worth the risk, given the daunting challenges of a complex world with an ever-expanding multiplicity of actors, interests, and issues to be resolved. 

The stakes are high. Globalization is not, after all, the end of history. It is time to take a proactive stance lest we witness a full-fledged backlash against globalization. The status quo is unsustainable, and a change for the worse by forcing globalization back into national boundaries -- "moving forward into the past" -- is not an unlikely scenario. Networks can help to change this unsustainable status quo for the better, by responding to the challenges and taking full advantage of technological change and economic and social integration. Ultimately, it is up to the political will of the member states to endorse such a course of action. But it is the duty of the United Nations to lay out to its members the challenges that face them at the dawning of the new millennium and offer them an achievable agenda for meeting those challenges.