ABSTRACT
Various contemporary academics and practitioners have emphasised the importance of context in different fields: leadership research [5];partnership evaluation [6];resource conservation [7];business–NGO partnerships [8];health care quality [9];HIV/AIDS implementation research [10];entrepreneurial innovation [11];corporate social responsibility [12];and the development of sustainability goals and targets [13]. With a special focus on partnerships with the private sector, the authors suggest that partnership impact assessments need to find ways of balancing monitoring and evaluation practices that focus on result-based, upward accountability with those that seek to promote learning, participatory and complexity-based approaches. The remaining articles in the Special Issue explore perceptions of partnership among non-state actors such as NPOs, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and private sector partners in partnerships for the SDGs in a selection of different countries and regions. In Ireland, Aparajita Banerjee, Enda Murphy and Patrick Paul Walsh share findings from a study on civil society and private sector perceptions of multi-stakeholder partnerships in ‘Perceptions of Multistakeholder Partnerships for the Sustainable Development Goals: A Case Study of Irish Non-State Actors’ (https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/21/8872).