scholarly journals Enhancing Livelihoods Fund: Final report

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Final Report ◽  
Small Areas ◽  
Food Supply Chains ◽  
Extended Value ◽  
Stakeholder Partnerships ◽  
Multi Stakeholder ◽  
Global Food

Over a quarter of the world’s population makes a living farming and working on small areas of land. These smallholder farmers contribute significantly to global food supply chains, but despite this make up a large proportion of the world’s poorest people, with many living on less than $2 a day. Between 2015 and 2020, Oxfam, Unilever and the Ford Foundation worked in close partnership on a joint initiative, the Enhancing Livelihoods Fund (ELF). The fund’s main objective was to improve the livelihoods of smallholders linked to Unilever’s extended value chains. It focused in particular on women, innovative pilots and learning. This report highlights key results and lessons learned. It is intended for NGOs, companies and donors who have an interest in improving smallholder-based value chains, especially through multi-stakeholder partnerships between NGOs and the private sector.

scholarly journals Thinking beyond collateral in value chain lending: access to bank credit for smallholder Vietnamese bamboo and cinnamon farmers

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-555
Author(s):  
Do Xuan Luan ◽  
Aaron J. Kingsbury
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Value Chains ◽  
Heckman Model ◽  
Access To Credit ◽  
Stakeholder Partnerships ◽  
Multi Stakeholder ◽  
Lower Income Countries ◽  
Depth Interviews

Using case studies of the bamboo and cinnamon value chains in rural areas of northern Vietnam, this paper contributes to the existing literature by analyzing barriers and suggests conditions under which value chain lending would be an effective tool for improving smallholder farmers’ access to credit. A mixed method using both in-depth interviews with relevant stakeholders and a two-stage Heckman model is employed to explain the existing credit gap. Findings show that in both chains, bank decision-making on lending is typically limited to individual chain actors instead of considering the whole chain. Commercial banks predominately use conventional lending approaches heavily dependent on collateral which typically results in a shortage of credit available to the chain actors. Value chain lending is constrained by weak chain linkages and limited ownership of private bank accounts. Drawing from these cases in Vietnam, the article concludes by arguing that status quo value chain lending in lower-income countries merits considerable rethinking. The lending approaches of banks require innovation to ‘think beyond collateral’ in improving chain cohesion. Multi-stakeholder partnerships are important for successful value chain lending. In addition, farmer-based unions have the potential to address issues of information asymmetry in the credit market.

scholarly journals Voiceless but empowered farmers in corporate supply chains: Contradictory imagery and instrumental approach to empowerment

Organization ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 609-635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy McCarthy ◽  
Anne Touboulic ◽  
Lee Matthews
Keyword(s):  
Supply Chains ◽  
Critical Discourse Analysis ◽  
Food Supply ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Sustainable Farming ◽  
Large Organization ◽  
Food Supply Chains ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
Global Food ◽  
Global Food Supply

There have been calls for a shift of focus toward the political and power-laden aspects of transitioning toward socially equitable global supply chains. This article offers an empirically grounded response to these calls from a critical realist stance in the context of global food supply chains. We examine how an imaginary for sustainable farming structured around an instrumental construction of empowerment limits what is viewed as permissible, desirable, and possible in global food supply chains. We adopt a multimodal critical discourse analysis to examine the sustainable farming imaginary for smallholder farmers constructed by one large organization, Unilever, in a series of videos produced and disseminated on YouTube. We expose the underlying mechanisms of power and marginalization at work within the sustainability imaginary and show how ‘empowerment’ has the potential to create new dependencies for these farmers. We recontextualize the representations to show that while the imaginary may be commercially feasible, it is less achievable in terms of empowering smallholder farmers.

scholarly journals Blue Economy: Community Case Studies Addressing the Poverty–Environment Nexus in Ocean and Coastal Management

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 4654
Author(s):  
Sulan Chen ◽  
Charlotte De Bruyne ◽  
Manasa Bollempalli
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Poverty Reduction ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Coastal Communities ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Local Practices ◽  
Blue Economy ◽  
Socio Economic Impact ◽  
Stakeholder Partnerships ◽  
Multi Stakeholder

The objective of this paper is to examine how local practices of blue economy succeed in addressing the poverty–environment nexus in coastal communities. While many disciplines touch upon the concept of blue economy, little literature exists on how a sustainable blue economy approach can help bridge poverty–environment challenges, particularly at the community level. To illustrate this, we present three case studies of blue economy practices initiated and implemented by coastal communities in China, Samoa, and Vietnam. The outcomes from each case study are examined based on both their environmental and socio-economic impact. Lessons learned include the significant role of science and technology in innovating solutions, the crucial impact of community leaders in encouraging and amplifying both local needs and solutions, continuous advocacy, fulfilling the very important need for communities to witness tangible benefits of project implementation, and last but not least the availability of resources and know-how resulting from multi-stakeholder partnerships including local governing councils, NGOs, and community members. Local communities have an unrecognized potential for adaptation and innovation and that more proactive public policies are required to achieve environmental and poverty reduction objectives simultaneously.

scholarly journals Using Participatory Approaches to Enhance Women’s Engagement in Natural Resource Management in Northern Ghana

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (13) ◽  
pp. 7072
Author(s):  
Peter Cronkleton ◽  
Kristen Evans ◽  
Thomas Addoah ◽  
Emilie Smith Dumont ◽  
Mathurin Zida ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Learning ◽  
Smallholder Farmers ◽  
Knowledge Exchange ◽  
Northern Ghana ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Change Initiatives ◽  
Decision Making Processes ◽  
Over Exploitation ◽  
Multi Stakeholder ◽  
Multi Phase

From 2016–2019, the West African Forest-Farm Interface (WAFFI) project engaged with smallholder farmers in northern Ghana to explore mechanisms to improve the influence of under-represented peoples, particularly women, in decision-making processes and platforms that affect their access to natural resources. Through a multi-phase process of participatory activities, including auto-appraisal, participatory action research (PAR) and facilitated knowledge exchange, villagers and researchers worked together to document and develop a better understanding of the challenges and changes facing women and men in the region to generate social learning. Among these challenges, the degradation of forest resources due to over exploitation, weak governance and conflict of use over shea trees (Vitellaria paradoxa) were particularly important for women. The WAFFI approach created a scaffold for social learning that strengthened the capacity of local stakeholders to share their perspectives and opinions more effectively in multi-stakeholder forums and dialogue related to resource use and land use change initiatives.

COVID-19 and Collective Action

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Todd Sandler
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Disease Surveillance ◽  
Vaccine Development ◽  
Treatment Practices ◽  
Individual Contributions ◽  
Stakeholder Partnerships ◽  
Multi Stakeholder

AbstractThis conceptual article argues that COVID-19 poses myriad global collective action challenges, some of which are easier than others to address. COVID-19 requires numerous distinct activities – e.g., vaccine development, uncovering treatment practices, imposing quarantines, and disease surveillance. The prognosis for effective collective action rests on the underlying aggregator technologies, which indicate how individual contributions determine the amount of a COVID-19 activity that is available for consumption. Best- and better-shot aggregators are more apt to promote desired outcomes than weakest- and weaker-link aggregators. The roles for public policy and important actors (e.g., multi-stakeholder partnerships) in fostering collective action are indicated.

Multi-stakeholder partnerships for transfer of environmentally soundtechnologies

Energy Policy ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karlijn Morsink ◽  
Peter S. Hofman ◽  
Jon C. Lovett
Keyword(s):  
Stakeholder Partnerships ◽  
Multi Stakeholder

scholarly journals Characterization of Sustainability Leaders and Laggards in the Global Food Industry

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (18) ◽  
pp. 5072 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivek Pandey ◽  
Natalia Vidal ◽  
Rajat Panwar ◽  
Lubna Nafees
Keyword(s):  
Food Industry ◽  
Critical Role ◽  
Performance Criteria ◽  
Government Organizations ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Multi Stakeholder ◽  
Robust Process ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Global Food

The global food industry has a critical role to play in achieving multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Accordingly, global firms in this industry pursue a wide array of sustainability issues. However, it remains unclear as to how leading firms differ from laggard firms in the industry in terms of their overall approach to sustainability and SDGs. To bridge this gap, we conducted in-depth interviews with sixteen experts comprising representatives of global firms, non-government organizations (NGOs), and researchers and academics. First, we identified five sustainability performance criteria—engagement with multi-stakeholder groups (MSGs), measurement of sustainability outcomes, resource commitment by top management, integration of sustainability programs with traditional management systems, and a robust process for the identification of specific sustainability issues or SDGs. Then, we found that leaders and laggards are markedly different in their approaches to pursue these performance criteria.

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