Transnational Public Private Partnerships and Environmental Governance in Africa : can new forms of governance solve the implementation deadlock ?

The growing number of international environmental regimes with demanding commitments and binding rules has hardened many states’ reluctance to accept further commitments. This vacuum has been filled by the participation of “private actors” (understood as business-related actors) in both treaty negotiation and implementation. Transnational Public/Private partnerships are part of this emerging “hybrid governance” raising many issues of legitimacy and accountability. However, this paper focuses on the issue of effectiveness/efficiency, and more specifically on the potential contribution of Johannesburg Type II partnerships to the implementation of existing regimes in the Third World. It then shows that a thorough analysis of the nature of the state in Africa points at difficulties to implement PPP similar to the problems encountered by traditional development assistance. The paper finally elaborates on the need to move from the current vision of PPP towards a more political form of partnerships, what we call “transcalar policy coalitions”.