Building Sustainable Public Policy Decisions through Partnerships

Sustainable resolution of complex and controversial environmental issues by government agencies in the public policy arena can hinge on the success of the decision-making process. Governmental partnerships can assist in building resilient decisions. A decision closure framework that targets decision-making closure and is composed of human factors, operational characteristics, and organizational structure are used as a tool to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of three government partnerships. The analysis proceeds to use a single region's partnerships to minimize the influence of human factors. Nevertheless, several of the key factors identified in successful decision making from the three partnerships stemmed largely from the contributions of the human qualities. The procedural characteristics most helpful in decision closure included establishment of clear roles and responsibilities, preparation and ratification of partnership documents such as vision statements and work plans, and regular assessments of performance. The analysis suggests that a two-tiered organizational structure with compartments for input from “subjective” and “objective” sources is successful for information exchange.