Social partnerships have emerged as a means for countries to cope with harsh economic circumstances. They are based on cooperation between the government, private sector and labour force on strategies to address immediate and long-term economic and social challenges. However, the success of these partnerships depends not just on concluding the partnership, but also in sustaining it. Jamaica has done neither. In this paper, we survey the experiences of other countries with social partnership agreements, including Ireland, the forerunner. Further, we outline the results of one-on-one consultations conducted with Jamaican stakeholders to ascertain the prospects for and elements of another, more successful social partnership process.