IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Registration closes on 12th March 2024. Click HERE to register

See the final conference programme here. This will be finalised after registration closes


Scene Setting 

As part of setting the scene for CSSI2024 and initiating collective thinking and reflection on power and inclusion in cross sector collaboration, we invite you to listen to recordings of two insightful academic-practitioner conversations on the topic. To view and listen to these recordings, please visit the SCENE SETTING tab on the website.


The Cross Sector Social Interactions (CSSI) Symposium series hosts biannual conferences that foster collaboration and exchange among diverse scholars and practitioners working on cross sector collaboration. The purpose is to advance and exchange knowledge and experience on how to effectively partner for sustainable development.

CSSI 2024 is being hosted by the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, in collaboration with The Partnering Initiative (TPI), PRME Chapter Africa and the Embedding Project. It aims to respond to calls from scholars, practitioners, and policy makers that development can only be “inclusive” if it also considers intellectual traditions, philosophy, and experience from the Global South.

Both scholars and policy makers are calling for a shift in the development paradigm, for theory and practice of development to become more inclusive of local actors and intellectual traditions from the Global South. CSSI 2024 aims to contribute to this objective and for the first time will be hosted on the African continent at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business.

Foregrounding Africa

Bringing CSSI to Africa is particularly appropriate for this symposium theme. Africa will have the most rapid population growth of all continents this century. This brings remarkable opportunities and risks for sustainable development. Much will depend on whether cross-sector collaboration can foster policies and practices that realize the opportunities – and mitigate the risks – of this remarkable demographic, social, and economic transition, in sectors such as education, health, urban development, clean energy, and many others.

Through CSSI 2024, we seek to connect the CSSI community to this “African century.” We will ensure that the local context is foregrounded in symposium discussions through field trips, plenaries, and research-practice conversations. We will ensure that African researchers and practitioners are prominent participants in the event, with the broader intention of expanding the CSSI community’s African membership. And we will encourage and enable the CSSI community to give more systematic attention to Africa in its work.

Symposium Theme: “Power and Inclusion in Cross-Sector Social Interactions

In this conference, we seek to explore and discuss these themes in more detail, making good use of our context characterized by severe inequality and historical injustice, but also by far-reaching and ongoing attempts to respond to such inequality and exclusion through cross-sector collaboration. For more detailed discussion of the symposium theme, including some guiding questions, see the call for submissions  We welcome contributions from both academics and practitioners and look forward to engaging with a wide array of voices and perspectives during the conference.


IMPORTANT INFORMATION

Registration closes on 12th March 2024. Click HERE to register

See the preliminary conference programme here. This will be finalised after registration closes