The Role of Business in Sustainable Development:
Multi-Stakeholder Partnerships.
A Complementary Strategy to Fulfill Global Commitments in Education

During the last 15 years, the World Conference on EFA and the MDGs stand out as the most
ambitious international development initiatives ever conducted. These enterprises, which
promote universal access to education as well as major improvements in other fields,
incorporate co-responsibility and participation of the different sectors of society among their
core values.

Among the priorities that were established in global and regional meetings, developing
countries committed to: 1) improve the condition of child and adolescent development; 2) train
teachers and equalize educational services; 3) allocate resources optimally and generate
alternative funding to education; and 4) design and implement collaboration mechanisms
between public and private actors. More precisely, participant countries agreed to achieve, by
the year 2015, universal access to primary education and to improve secondary enrollment
rates considerably.

By looking at quality and quantity measures of education in Latin America, we chose to analyze
the cases of Mexico and the Dominican Republic as in these two countries we identified a
dramatic drop-out rate at secondary level, a critical inconsistency between enrollment rates
and effectiveness ratios, and a very limited participation of the private and social sectors in the
provision of community and complementary services to education.

In order to analyze these factors and to further develop our model, we grouped the different
agents of society into three sectors: Public, Private and Social; and specified their roles and
inter-relationships according to the context of our paper:

1. Public Private Partnerships that offer other public goods and services without the involvement of the social sector (PPPs)
2. Governmental Organizations that provide community services with the assistance of the civil society and members of the community (GOs)
3. Non-Governmental Organizations that supply community services with the support of private contributions (NGOs)
4. Multi Stakeholder Partnerships in which the three sectors of the society collaborate in the provision of community services in an equitable manner (MSPs).

Later on, using a variant of the Cobb-Douglas utility function to describe a low-income family's
preferences when confronted by the decision of either registering their children in secondary
education or in the labor market, we argue that the enhancement of MSPs would induce a
higher investment in human and social capital and, consequently, a greater utility. This effect,
if aggregated and incorporated into a macroeconomic model, shows that under certain
conditions, developing countries would experience positive growth if all sectors of society
combine their efforts and conduct social development initiatives in an equitable manner.

Additionally, with the aim of presenting a sample application of our model, we analyzed some
examples of dual-sector alliances that have attained significant results: "Programa
Oportunidades - Progresa" and EDUCA in Mexico, and "Fondos para el Desarrollo de
Innovaciones Educativas" and The DREAM Project in the Dominican Republic.

Among the most important benefits of implementing micro-solutions under the scope of macro
policies (*1) we find the following:

• The Public Sector would complement the curricula of formal education with additional resources and skills from the private and social sectors
• Private firms that operate in a specific location would improve the living conditions of the community in which they serve or benefit from, improve educational skills of future workers, and, ultimately, increase their revenues and profits
• The Social Sector would combine its voluntary resources and capabilities with those of the other sectors to expand its programs, and to participate in the design, implementation and evaluation of public policies
• Ultimately, the enhancement of multi-sector alliances will allow society and its members to attain the desired levels of secondary enrollment, and to benefit from the multiple externalities of investing in human and social capital

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* 1 In which local authorities, private firms, civil society organizations and other members of the community, participate in an equally accountable basis.