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Global nuts and local mangoes: a critical reading of the UNDP Growing Sustainable Business Initiative in Kenya

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Abstract

This article provides a conceptual and empirical assessment of UN brokered partnerships that seek to deepen or create inclusive and sustainable agricultural supply chains in sub-Saharan Africa. More specifically it appraises the decision-making mechanisms, processes of partnership brokerage and project implementation within the UNDP Growing Sustainable Business Initiative (GSB) in Kenya. The paper argues that the lack of bottom-up participation in decision-making mechanisms and the predominantly economic imperatives driving the GSB partnership projects have failed to reach out to the partnerships’ intended beneficiaries—Kenyan small producers of nuts and mangoes. In conclusion it is suggested that opening up the GSB platform might hold the promise of reconciling sustainable business models with (some) poverty reduction.

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Notes

  1. As of mid-2008 the initiative was active in Madagascar, Tanzania, Kenya, Zambia, Malawi, Macedonia, Moldova, Mozambique, Serbia, Turkey, Cambodia, Indonesia. The GSB platforms in Ethiopia, Angola and El Salvador were abandoned.

  2. This article derives from research material elicited for a wider research on the UN Global Compact, an initiative which is commonly portrayed as the premier global public-private partnership. Whilst conducting qualitative interviews in New York in December 2005 a number of UN civil servants suggested looking more closely at processes of partnership formation and implementation in support of the MDGs at country level. Kenya and Tanzania were identified as locations where I could investigate the politics of forums such as the UN Global Compact Local Network Kenya and one of the Compact’s ancillary initiatives—the Growing Sustainable Business Initiative.

  3. This is not to say that the information is not accurate, sometimes it is simply not updated because of lack of personnel and resources—a commonly acknowledged problem in UN Country Offices. However, whilst conducting research on the GSB it was also found that once the partnerships database are updated ‘failed’ partnerships are removed without explanations as to why specific projects were abandoned or de-linked from the GSB.

  4. Ronen Shamir (2004) defines these organisations as Market Non-Governmental Organisations (MaNGOs).

  5. Historically the GEI was established by AIESEC Executives and it was co-funded by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD).

  6. The bilateral relations between Japan and the Kenyan government dated back to the 1970s when Japan’s funding was instrumental in creating the institutions, capacities and infrastructures needed for the creation of a Kenyan market for macadamia.

  7. Global Nuts’ main competitor.

  8. The sustainability aspect of the project was not only relegated to ‘strict environmental and ecological guidelines’ free from chemical and pesticides (Personal Communication, Global Entrepreneurs Project Proposal, 14 July 2006), but it also envisaged recycling the nuts’ shell to use them as fuel.

  9. Additional funding to follow up on the consultant’s recommendation was expected to come from NORAD (US$ 20,000) and Global Entrepreneurs Africa in the form of human resources (US$ 22,535).

  10. The amounts varied depending on the distance to the collection centres and the need for cash.

  11. GTZ, with self-funding for the project (GTZ PPP Fund), was entrusted with the responsibility of looking for more suppliers of high quality mangoes in the central districts.

  12. KGT linked the smallholders to a Belgian wholesaler and was actively looking into donor’s fund to set up a pulp-processing factory in Malindi, at the same time it had started to evaluate the possibility of establishing a more lucrative market for dried mangoes.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Peter Utting for encouraging me to write this paper, Craig Murphy, Rorden Wilkinson, two anonymous referees and the editors for providing incisive and encouraging comments. The paper also benefitted from the questions and comments made by the participants of the Symposium ‘Private Governance in the Agro-Food System’ held at the University of Münster in April 2008. Last, I would like to express my gratitude to the civil servants, farmers, businesses and NGOs that offered their time to answer my questions.

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  1. The University of Manchester, Politics, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK

    Catia Gregoratti

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Correspondence to Catia Gregoratti.

Annex 1

Annex 1

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Table 1 Growing Sustainable Business initiative in Kenya project portfolio 2005–2008
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Gregoratti, C. Global nuts and local mangoes: a critical reading of the UNDP Growing Sustainable Business Initiative in Kenya. Agric Hum Values 28, 369–383 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10460-009-9211-z

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