Potential and limits of inclusive business as a pathway for enhancing inclusivity and sustainability in African agriculture: A critical analysis in Tanzania and Ghana (EU)
Summary
Over the past decade and half, inclusive businesses have become ubiquitous in development policymaking. In the agricultural sector, its assurance of poverty reduction for smallholders has taken the center stage in strategies of many development institutions (Kelly et al. 2015), attracting donor finance in the order of 3 to 4 billion dollars per year (Woodhill 2016). Yet, scholars caution that such popularity and promise of inclusive businesses in the agricultural sector stand on shaky empirical grounds (Likoko & Kini 2017; Pouw et al. 2019; Woodhill 2016). While the inclusive business approach is well conceptualized in theory and principals (e.g. Schoneveld 2020; Vermeulen & Cotula 2010), few studies have empirically examined how they work on the ground (Woodhill 2016). Against this backdrop, 15 years after inclusive business was mainstreamed into development policymaking (Likoko & Kini 2017), this study invests into the generation of systematic evidence on the experiences with inclusive agribusinesses in Africa, to provide a realistic view on its potential and limitations, and to distil lessons for improvements and scaling. This includes the following specific objectives: (1) to understand how inclusive agribusinesses address critical issues related to inclusivity and sustainability in their designs; (2) to examine the effects of inclusive agribusinesses on smallholder livelihoods and their environment, and the contributing factors across cases and commodities; and, (3) to critically assess the scope of action to influence the above-identified factors for more positive outcomes.
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Project responsible / Principal supervisor: | Prof. Dr. Benno Pokorny, Prof. Nils Fold (University of Copenhagen) and Dr George Schoneveld (CIFOR) |
Implementing person(s): | Xue Weng |
Funding: | Jointly funded by Governing Multi-functional Landscapes funded by the European Commission and Inclusive Business and Financing Models funded by the Forest, Trees and Agroforestry (FTA) program of the CGIAR. |
Duration: | July 2019 to December 2022 |
Partner: | Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Nairobi |