​​Systemic Collaboration: types and functions of Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives

Valentina Mansur

Introduction

Over the past decades, we have seen significant progress on some social and economic fronts. According to the World Bank¹, the number of people living in extreme poverty fell from 2.3 billion in 1990 to around 831 million in 2025. Global life expectancy increased by nine years — from about 64 years in 1990 to 73 years in 2023² —. In Brazil, infant mortality has dropped by half between 1998 and 2002 and currently stands at around 12 per thousand, a historically low rate.

Yet, deep and persistent challenges remain unaddressed. Social inequality, climate change, and biodiversity loss are among them.

According to Oxfam³, the world will see its first trillionaire within the next ten years, but poverty is expected to persist for another two centuries. Nature continues to lose resilience: WWF’s Living Planet Report 2024⁴ indicates that in 2023, the loss of primary tropical forest reached 3.7 million hectares — equivalent to almost ten football fields per minute — resulting in approximately 2.4 Gt of CO₂. Moreover, 2024 was the hottest year ever recorded, according to NASA and the European Copernicus Observatory, with global average temperatures exceeding pre-industrial levels by more than 1.5°C⁵.

In the socio-environmental field, it has become increasingly evident that these problems are systemic — and therefore cannot be addressed in isolation —. Social, environmental, and economic issues are deeply interconnected. Intervening in one part of this system does not change reality in a single dimension; it generates ripple effects that impact other areas that compose it. The COVID-19 pandemic left no doubt about this. What began as a health crisis soon generated strong economic impacts due to lockdowns, deepening social problems such as income loss and the collapse of health systems, while also intensifying political polarization, among other consequences.

This historical turning point is an invitation to collective learning to explore more systemic ways of acting, which include developing a holistic understanding of social and environmental challenges and embracing more collaborative approaches to system transformation.

Increasingly, efforts toward cross-sector collaboration to address complex problems have taken shape in the form of multi-stakeholder initiatives (MSIs).

In this context, Sense-Lab is developing the Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives for the Development of Impact Ecosystems’ Study, supported by Fundação Grupo Boticário, Instituto Arapyaú, ICE, Instituto Sabin, and Fundo Vale. Scheduled for publication in early 2026, the study aims to understand the typologies of MSIs through the mapping and analysis of more than 80 cases.

This article presents a preliminary version of the study’s findings, identifying the main types and functions of MSIs — insights that can contribute to a deeper understanding of this collaborative model and its variations —.

Iniciativas Multiatores identificadas Multi-stakeholder Initiatives Identified

Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives (MSIs) are interconnected systems of organizations that collaborate in a decentralized way to achieve shared goals. These initiatives differ in their levels of coordination and alignment, for example, in how they define strategies, allocate resources, or implement joint projects and activities.

MSIs vary in their nature, degree of coordination and alignment, and modes of operation.

For instance, influence-oriented MSIs focus on advocacy, public engagement, and strengthening social accountability. They may also involve knowledge production and dissemination, as well as capacity-building programs. A key example is the Brazil Climate, Forests and Agriculture Coalition, a network of over 400 representatives from business, finance, academia, and civil society that promotes Brazil’s leadership in a low-carbon economy and creates synergies between forest protection, sustainable agriculture, and climate adaptation.

There are also action-oriented MSIs, which coordinate and implement projects to respond to socio-environmental challenges. These initiatives establish shared goals and plans among multiple actors and manage logistics, stakeholder engagement, and operations to generate concrete results.

Examples include Reconstrói RS, which supports the reconstruction of infrastructure in flood-affected regions in Rio Grande do Sul, and the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact, which drives bioregional restoration through collaboration and large-scale impact.

Another type includes production-oriented MSIs, which aim to develop value chains through collaborative production and processing, market access, and shared logistics.

Examples are the Xingu Seed Network (ARSX) — focused on collective production and biodiversity conservation — and MapBiomas, a network of universities, NGOs, and technology companies that monitor land-use changes and their impacts across Brazil, representing an intellectual-production MSI.

There are also alignment-oriented MSIs, which are not necessarily focused on joint implementation but instead aim to build collective meaning, strengthen strategic and narrative cohesion, and foster trust among stakeholders. These initiatives act as shared compasses for their ecosystems — preventing overlaps and enabling more coordinated action —. An example is the Pantanal Headwaters Pact, a WWF-Brazil-led alliance that unites government, private sector, and civil society actors to protect the Pantanal’s water sources.

Another group are the connection and learning MSIs, which operate with a lower degree of coordination than alignment-oriented ones (as they do not seek explicit strategic alignment among members). Their goal is to create spaces for peer exchange, experience-sharing, capacity-building, critical reflection, and documentation of learning. These initiatives play a key role by bringing together and strengthening organizations that might not otherwise collaborate but are crucial to unlocking systemic bottlenecks. A good example is Latimpacto, a Latin American and Caribbean network that connects capital providers to strategically channel human, intellectual, and financial capital toward social and environmental impact.

It’s important to note that these types are archetypes observed in the impact ecosystem. In practice, most MSIs combine functions from multiple types, though one may typically predominate.

Beyond these archetypes, our analysis identified a new emerging profile, the ecosystem development initiatives.

TYPOLOGY	FUNCTIONS	EXAMPLES
Influence	• Knowledge production and translation  • Advocacy and public engagement  • Strengthening social accountability  • Training and capacity-building	Brazil Climate, Forests and Agriculture Coalition
Action	• Collaborative implementation  • Coordinated responses  • Systemic experimentation  • Joint goal and plan-setting  • Logistics, mobilization, and operations	Reconstrói RS Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact
Production	• Collaborative production and processing • Offer organization and logistics  • Joint commercialization and market access  • Conservation of natural resources, traditional knowledge, and regeneration  • Productive inclusion and income generation	MapBiomas Xingu Seed Network (ARSX)
Alignment	• Collective sense-making  • Promotion of narrative cohesion  • Symbolic or institutional anchoring  • Strengthening trust and relationships  • Preparing for future collaboration	Pantanal Headwaters Pact
Connection and Learning	• Creation of trust-based spaces  • Exchange of experiences and knowledge • Capacity-building and development  • Stimulating critical reflection  • Strengthening ties and networks	Latimpacto
Ecosystem Development	• Mapping and understanding the ecosystem  • Connecting and articulating diverse actors  • Strengthening capacities and leadership • Fostering collaboration and co-creation  • Influencing broader systems  • Aligning agendas and efforts for ecosystem-level intervention	Movimento Viva Água Coalition for Impact ADR – Regional Development Agency of Southern Bahia

Tabela com o resumo de tipos de Iniciativas Multiatores (IMAs) identificadas.

Ecosystem Development Initiatives

An Ecosystem Development Initiative is a collaboration among multiple actors dedicated to intentionally strengthening the elements and relationships that compose a thematic or territorial ecosystem, connecting diverse sectors and fields. These initiatives adopt an ecosystemic lens, focusing on understanding, connecting, and strengthening actors and their relationships, as well as promoting spaces for co-creation. Their goal is to create conditions for resilience, self-organization, and influence over broader systems using ecosystem development as a pathway to enable lasting social or environmental transformation.

They embrace a systemic approach, focusing primarily on developing an ecosystem within a specific territorial or thematic scope. Their strategies include mapping and understanding the ecosystem and its relationships; bringing together diverse actors to co-create; aligning agendas and efforts for ecosystem-level intervention; strengthening key ecosystem actors; weaving connections; and influencing larger systems.

Conclusion

While the progress achieved in recent decades demonstrates our collective capacity for advancement, today’s deadlocks make it clear that lasting solutions require more than isolated projects. They call for multisectoral articulations with a systemic perspective.

Multi-stakeholder initiatives, in their many forms — and especially ecosystem development initiatives — work as an “invisible infrastructure” that connects interests, distributes capacities, and generates public goods such as trust, data, standards, narratives, and shared agendas. For these initiatives to fulfill their role, it is essential to combine clarity of purpose with inclusive governance, shared impact metrics, transparency, continuous learning, and patient capital. By investing in this collaborative architecture, organizations can accelerate responses to urgent challenges, scale resilience, and turn isolated achievements into systemic change.

In other words: no one will solve interdependent challenges alone — but well-cultivated ecosystems just might turn the tide, making socioeconomic development more just, regenerative, and resilient —.

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This article is part of the Study on Multi-Stakeholder Initiatives for the Development of Impact Ecosystems, focused on the knowledge and experiences related to collaborative processes. Its findings are consolidated in three formats: podcast episodes (S1); articles; a full publication on the topic — bringing together both the mapping of networks, coalitions, and multi-stakeholder arrangements dedicated to ecosystem development, and a deeper understanding of the people and organizations currently driving solutions to collective-interest challenges —.

Actors from Brazil’s socio-environmental impact ecosystem who support this initiative.