“There has been little effort to date to understand what makes MSIs [multi-stakeholder initiatives] succeed or fail, or indeed if they were the best choice to address the problem in the first place. While many MSIs are still relatively new, we are now at a point in their evolution to step back and ask: what have we learned? Are MSIs delivering on what they set out to do? Where — and where not? And why — or why not? Many MSIs have been evaluated individually (and some multiple times!), but no study has looked at the experiences of MSI in a comparative light. This report takes a macro-level view of the MSI landscape to date, focusing on the initiation through start-up phases of an MSI’s lifecycle, and represents an important first step in the longer-term journey of learning about MSIs. … In particular, we sought answers to the questions: When is an MSI the best-suited solution to address a global development problem, and what can an MSI do in its early days to be most effective?”

This report is included in our list of TEN NOTABLE RESOURCES FOR IDENTIFYING WHEN AND HOW TO COLLABORATE.