Orchestrating multistakeholder partnerships for sustainable development: can UN High Impact Initiatives contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals?

The United Nations (UN) High Impact Initiatives (HIIs) have received limited attention since their launch at the 2023 SDG Summit. We conceive of these novel institutional innovations to accelerate implementation of the 2030 Agenda as orchestration mechanisms for overseeing and governing via multi-stakeholder partnerships (MSPs). Although initially framed as partnership-like initiatives in their own right to promote bottom-up action on sustainable development, we find that the HIIs are a culmination of efforts by the UN Secretary-General to assert greater authority in global sustainability governance. This article traces the development of UN discourse on orchestration and MSPs over the past decade to situate the HIIs in the context of this shifting approach. It also assesses the functions of the HIIs as orchestration mechanisms for delivering progress on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) using MSPs as governance intermediaries. We discuss the HIIs in the context of evolving UN bureaucratic politics and argue that they constitute both a response to the shortcomings of past MSPs and an attempt to reassert authority over transnational governance in the face of geopolitical turbulence as the SDGs slide further off track. Yet we also suggest that the HIIs are not well positioned to deliver transformative change and raise questions about the appropriate governance approach for the UN in the face of growing transnational crises and fragmentation.

Higham, I., Bäckstrand, K. Orchestrating multistakeholder partnerships for sustainable development: can UN High Impact Initiatives contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals?. Int Environ Agreements (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-026-09719-y