Today the importance of the private sector is recognized as a key mainspring to generate economic growth, jobs and income in developing countries. But making the private sector contribute to sustainable and inclusive development does, on the other hand, not happen automatically.

Hence, it is increasingly important to understand the strategies, tools and methodologies that development agencies can adopt to ensure that the private sector contribute to sustainable and inclusive development as well as its evolution in the interface with the regulatory framework and the recipients. The course ‘Making the Private Sector Work for Sustainable Development provides such an understanding.

To this end, the course combines a business strategic approach with theory and tools for effective programming for inclusive and sustainable development. The course provides students with an understanding the context and the roles of the respective sectors, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Moreover, the course provides a conceptual and theoretical overview of the private sector involvement in the international development agenda as well as knowledge of various types of development interventions from direct business support, value chain development to Public Private Partnership (PPP) models. A key aim of the course is to provide students with tools for the design and management of sustainable market and business driven development interventions. The course is informed by literature as well as on practical experience of course faculty.   

The course covers four overall and interrelated topics:

The first topic consists of an introduction to the development in the roles and the interplay of the public, private and civil society sectors respectively over time. In particular the evolution of policy aims, themes and strategies, implementation practice and impact in relation to private sector driven development interventions. The overall context of development interventions will be examined, including current trends and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Focus will be on the role of the multilateral institutions, the OECD country-based donors and the non-traditional donors while also understanding the changing role of the recipients in the global South.

The second topic is concerned with methodologies and tools for design, planning and implementing of the development interventions. It draws on examples from developing countries and focus on management tools such as the Logical Framework Analysis (LFA), Donor Committee for Enterprise Development (DCED), Theory of Change and evaluation methodology.

The third topic will address the cross-cutting questions of evaluation of impact and sustainability of private sector driven development interventions and their adherence to UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and contribution to the SDGs. We outline and assess the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability - the 5 DAC evaluation criteria - of various types of private sector development interventions.

The fourth topic will discuss various modalities and forms of involvement of the private sector in international development cooperation with public actors like the Public-Private Partnerships.