Recent years have seen significant interest in the development of multi-stakeholder partnerships and multi-stakeholder processes that aim to address various developmental challenges. These have spanned a range of application areas, from environmental protection to social inclusion; from global initiatives to local and national partnerships; from alliances between the private and public sectors to the inclusion of a broader range of partners from civil society, grassroots organisations and the media; in policy development but also implementation and service delivery.

Partnerships between the public sector, the private sector and particularly civil society in promoting information and communication technology (ICT) policy are a relatively new venture. The mechanisms, management and governance of such partnerships, from loose arrangements to more formal mechanisms, are still relatively new and not always fully understood. This guide is an attempt to add to the growing body of knowledge and experience on multi-stakeholder processes and partnerships, based on the practical experiences encountered during the three-year CATIA programme on ICT policy advocacy. It presents guidelines that may assist national ICT policy facilitators in coming to grips with the complexities of multi-stakeholder relationships and the attainment of common goals and objectives. It considers practical issues for the establishment of a multi-stakeholder process for ICT policy and looks at how multi-stakeholder partnerships work, what has been successful and what has not, and offers some practical suggestions on how to make them more effective. Practical experiences from two African countries – the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Kenya – are used to illustrate two possible approaches.