September 29, 2005 | Read Time: 1 minute
Societal Learning and Change: How Governments, Business and Civil Society Are Creating Solutions to Complex Multi-Stakeholder Problems
by Steve Waddell
Across the globe, businesses, governments, and nonprofit groups are increasingly working together to solve social problems, writes Steve Waddell.
Mr. Waddell, founder of the Global Action Network Net, in Boston, calls this shift “societal learning and change.” In his book, he explains how different actors can bridge gaps and pool their resources to further this collaboration.
His success stories include how a local subsidiary of Dole Foods worked alongside small farmers and nonprofit groups in the Philippines to develop rice to market in Japan. He discusses how the French company Ondeo and a South African charity cooperated with local companies and communities to create better water systems for poor people, and how forest companies, environmentalists, and indigenous people on Canada’s Pacific Coast resolved a long-standing conflict over logging practices.
Mr. Waddell synthesizes the lessons from these and other examples and provides guidance on how other organizations can move away from an adverserial approach and adopt the philosophy that “we’re all in this together.”
Publisher: Greenleaf Publishing, Aizlewood’s Mill, Nursery Street, Sheffield S3 8GG England; 44-0-114-282-3475; fax 44-0-114-282-3476; info@greenleaf-publishing.com; http://www.greenleaf-publishing.com; 164 pages; $65 cloth; $40 paper; ISBN 1-874719-93-4.
