Will small development charities survive?
Yesterday the Global Development Institute’s David Hulme represented a research project run jointly by GDI and SIID (the University of Sheffield), at the Small Charities International Development Debate in the House of Lords. The research project is seeking to map and give insight into the operations of and relationships within the UK-based international development NGO (INGO) sector.
Hosted by the Foundation for Social Improvement (FSI), the debate was part of FSI’s Small Charity Week, and asked ‘will small international development charities survive?’ David took the affirmative, as did S.A.L.V.E. International CEO Nicola Sansom and SNP National Secretary and Westminster Spokesperson on International Development Patrick Grady. On the opposing team were campaigner, writer and consultant on NGO strategy Deborah Doane, and founder and CEO of Teach a Man to Fish, Nik Kafka. The debate was chaired by Bibi Van der Zee, Editor at the Guardian’s Global Development Professional Network.
Speaking first, Nicola Sansom pointed out that small INGOs are risk-takers, have low overheads and develop and maintain strong networks. She also noted that increasingly affordable comms routes mean costs are less of a barrier to awareness-raising, and also make it easier for charities to exercise transparency with donors and other stakeholders. David also made a case for small INGOs’ capacity for networking and partnerships, pointing out that they play an important role in connecting complex debates at an interpersonal, community level and in diversifying ‘official’ development messaging and activity. He argued that plenty of donors are still looking to engage with small INGOs in their capacity as an important, active component of civil society. However, as the current SIID & GDI mapping research has so far shown, David acknowledged that the biggest 9% of UK NGOs receive 90% of all development spending, and that if small charities are to survive there exists a clear need for better distribution of funds.
The SNP’s Patrick Grady argued that small INGOs can and should survive, and therefore that they will. He emphasised that there will always be a desire amongst people at the grassroots to contribute to humanitarian causes, as donors and volunteers. He also noted that the larger INGOs often rely on smaller partners for actual, in-country project delivery, concluding that there is certainly a need for flexibility and adaptability as the development sector continues to change, but that its reforming will include big opportunities for small INGOs.
The opposition presented some convincing counterpoints, with Deborah Doane taking the stance that small charities are unlikely to survive in their current form. She made the point that NGOs and donors alike are feeling the financial pinch, and that, generally speaking, philanthrocapitalists tend to push small INGOs to operate as social enterprises not charities, and in so-doing undermine the charity model. She also noted a growing hostility toward donors on the part of recipients in the Global South, and a desire amongst the latter to take ownership of their countries’ development needs. She summarised by saying small INGOs won’t survive as they are today because of: the changing funding environment; the global assault on civil society; and the fact they’re ‘too damn authentic’.
Nik Kafka agreed that the current funding environment is not conducive to the survival of small charities; donors are increasingly ‘honing in’ on causes with very specific mandates (such as ‘educating girls in Uganda’), rather than more general approaches that allow for a wider range of small INGOs to benefit. He also argued that the costs of conclusively monitoring and demonstrating impact are rising. Similarly, while technology is generally cheaper now, it is still costly to purpose-build tools (like apps) that could improve operational efficiency; funds that small INGOs don’t tend to have. Conversely, he did make the point that while big INGOs may be good at securing donor support, they don’t always have the specialist knowledge needed for effective project delivery.
Ultimately, there was general consensus that there is a future for the small charity cohort, but that adaptability and an openness to working collaboratively are crucial. It was noted by FSI co-founder and Chief Executive Pauline Broomhead that networking is a strength for many small charities, but not all are as good at developing these connections into active collaborations and partnerships.
The debate provided compelling context for the SIID and GDI mapping project. Research is still in progress, but has produced interesting preliminary findings, including that:
1. Growth of the sector was most vigorous in the mid-2000s. But it is premature to view current (downward) trends as indicative of a long term decline in vigour of growth in numbers of organisations
2. The development sector is substantial, with expenditure equalling approximately 50% of current ODA
3. Distribution of expenditure is highly unequal, with less than 9% of organisations accounting for nearly 90% of expenditure (and 1% accounting for 50% of expenditure)
4. The sector has experienced growth generally, but the largest organisations experienced a dip in expenditure in 2012. Smaller organisations have experienced a decline in expenditure in recent years
5. Change in expenditure is highly variable, with the smaller organisations most likely to experience declines from one year to the next
More information on the project is available at on the Mapping Development NGOs website.
Small Charity Week was first established by the Foundation for Social Improvement (FSI) in 2010, to celebrate and raise the profile of the small charity sector. The week is one of a series of activities and initiatives to support and raise awareness of the hundreds and thousands of small charities that, every day, make a huge difference to vulnerable communities right across the UK and the rest of the world. Thank you to the organisers for their work, and what was a thought-provoking event!
Blog by Sarah Illingworth for SIID.
Should the UK abandon aid?
A petition organised by the Daily Mail calling for an end to the 0.7% aid spending target will be debated in parliament today after gaining 230,000 signatures.
In his new book, ‘Should Rich Nations Help the Poor’, Professor David Hulme examines the increasingly polarised debates around aid. He concludes that while we must be mindful that aid spending alone won’t end poverty, effectively given aid is both morally right and in the self-interest of a rich nation like the UK.
In a new video, he argues that UK aid is some of the most well scrutinized in the world and that working in fragile states like Somalia or Afghanistan are inherently risky – but hugely important.
Buy Should Rich Nations Help the Poor? from Wiley for £7.49, using the discount code: PY724.
Should Rich Nations Help the Poor?
GDI Executive Director, Professor David Hulme, has written a short and accessible analysis of why and how rich nations should help poor people and poorer countries. The book is ideal for general readers and students new to Development Studies and is available from Wiley for £7.49, using the discount code: PY724.
1.2 billion people still live in extreme poverty and around 2.9 billion cannot meet their basic human needs. We know that foreign aid is necessary, but not sufficient to end global poverty. Spiralling inequality and the growing impact of climate change on poor people threatens to derail the progress that’s been made over the last 25 years.
Hulme explains why helping the world’s neediest communities is both the right thing to do and the wise thing to do – if rich nations want to take care of their own citizens’ future welfare.
The real question is how best to provide this help. The way forward, Hulme argues, is not solely about foreign aid but also trade, finance and environmental policy reform. But this must happen alongside a change in international social norms so that we all recognize the collective benefits of a poverty-free world.
“David Hulme has provided an invaluable primer on why and how we should help the poor of the world. He rightly sees the key issues as climate change and inequality. In the end, we are all in this together, rich and poor alike.” Angus Deaton, Princeton University and Winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Economics
Global production networks and social upgrading: emerging research on a persistent challenge
Dr Rory Horner, Global Development Institute
In a global economy increasingly structured through global production networks, existing public and private governance approaches are struggling to promote improved labour conditions and sustainability, while new challenges are also emerging.
With this in mind, the Global Development Institute’s (GDI) Global production networks, labour and trade research group hosted a workshop earlier this month on “Global value chains and social upgrading”, to take stock of this field and to bring together a group of more than 20 emerging scholars to discuss their recent research on this issue. The workshop was generously funded by the Brown International Advanced Research Institute (BIARI) Alumni Research Initiative, as follow-up support to alumni – GDI’s Rory Horner and Rachel Alexander, GDI alumni Shamel Azmeh, Fabiola Mieres, Vivek Soundararajan and Annika Surmeier – of their fantastic two-week annual summer school which focuses on addressing global issues. The GDI also provided considerable support, with Manchester having led much of the growing field of research on social upgrading in global production networks, notably through the Capturing the Gains project.
In her opening keynote plenary on “Global value chains, market-making and the rise of precarious work”, Jennifer Bair traced cases of precarious work from New York city a century ago to contemporary Bangladesh to highlight how outsourcing through global value chains gives rise to challenging labour conditions.
Within global value chains, private governance has proliferated in recent years, and Greg Distelhorst, Judith Stroehle and Scott Sanders all sought to explore the impacts of, and limits to, compliance with private standards. Samia Hoque provided evidence from her recent collaborative paper on Bangladesh.
Gale-Raj Reichert’s work on the electronics industry, Vivek Soundararajan’s work on sourcing agents and boundary work and Annika Surmeier’s work on tourism presented further examples of labour challenges across a variety of sectors.
Fabiola Mieres provided an alternative notion to corporate-driven mechanisms through a notion of “worker-driven social responsibility”, while Matthew Alford highlighted public-private governance challenges in South African fruit. Indeed the challenges for both public and private governance was a recurring theme in the workshop discussions.
As public governance attempts at addressing social upgrading issues, international trade agreements are also now including social standards, as highlighted through Mirela Barbu’s work on the European Union’s Free Trade Agreements, and Shamel Azmeh’s presentation on the case of the Jordan-US trade agreement.
Prospects for social upgrading must consider gender, power, and embeddedness, as highlighted through Nikita Pardesi’s work on oil and gas in Trinidad and Tobago, Eleni Sifaki’s work on grape production in Greece and Judith Krauss’s recently completed doctoral research on sustainability challenges in the cocoa sector.
The challenges for better social outcomes in GPNs also go beyond labour. Anke Hagemann explored the impact of participation in GPNs on urban areas, while Rachel Alexander demonstrated the difficulty UK cotton-garment retailers face in promoting sustainability in their extended supply networks from India.
At the same time, new challenges for social upgrading emerge. The growth of transnational online labour markets within “virtual production networks” warrants growing attention as Alex Wood highlighted. Now more than ever, in today’s increasingly multi-polar global economy with growing South-South trade, social upgrading must also be considered beyond end markets in the global North. Jinsun Bae’s work on Myanmar’s garment industry, Corinna Braun-Munzinger’s work on corporate social responsibility in China and Natalie Langford’s work on social standards and tea production in India all made this case.
Workshop participants received detailed feedback and had opportunities to discuss their work with leading scholars in this field – Jennifer Bair (University of Colorado-Boulder), Peter Lund-Thomsen (Copenhagen Business School) and Andrew Schrank (Brown) as well as Manchester’s own Stephanie Barrientos, Martin Hess, and Khalid Nadvi.
With continued challenges for both private and public regulation of labour and sustainability issues in the global economy as well as new challenges emerging, the debate must continue. Look out for the research of these emerging scholars we hosted at GDI as it pushes this conversation forward.
Motorbike scheme breaks cycle of unemployment in Tanzania
An innovative ‘revolving motorcycle project’ set up by the Tanzanian Federation of the Urban Poor and supported by an academic at The University of Manchester is helping a group of young men in Arusha find new opportunities.
Dr Nicola Banks, of the Global Development Institute (GDI) has been working in Arusha, northern Tanzania, researching the social impacts of youth unemployment. After seeing first-hand how young people were struggling to earn a living, Nicola decided to do something to help.
Youth unemployment is a big problem in Tanzania. In the low-income community where Dr Bank’s research is based, around 70% of young men lack stable jobs.
One of the most popular ways for young men to earn a living is by becoming a Piki Piki (motorbike taxi) driver. But most drivers do not own their own motorcycles outright, instead spending a majority of their weekly earnings on renting their vehicles. This can cost around 6000 Tanzanian shillings a day (£1.85), leaving the drivers with very little money to live on, let alone save for longer term goals.
Dr Banks, an ESRC Future Research Leader at GDI, learned about the value of revolving loan funds through being exposed to the work of Shack/Slum Dwellers International whose Tanzanian affiliate, the Tanzania Federation for the Urban Poor, supported by the NGO, Centre for Community Initiatives is involved with her research. It was easy to share the idea with a local Piki Piki driver who was struggling to save money for university.
She said: “My research in Arusha shows above all that life is incredibly tough. It is an ongoing struggle for young people. I was lucky enough to meet an inspiring young man called Bakari who was well educated, very hardworking and had grand plans. But I was frustrated after the meeting as I knew unless there was a radical change in his life, there wasn’t going to be anyway he could meet those plans.”
Working with the SDI Federation in Tanzania and another NGO Tamasha Vijana who specialise in participatory development with young people, Bakari and some of his fellow Piki Piki drivers designed a revolving loan fund drawing on the capacities of the organized urban poor especially the women’s federation leadership. SDI’s experience with revolving loan funds has developed from its commitment to community empowerment and the first schemes were designed by women pavement dwellers living in Mumbai in the 1980s. Such designs can be understood as blending asset transfer programmes, traditional savings groups and social enterprise models. They are now illustrating a new and innovative model for working with young people in Tanzania which builds on similar schemes elsewhere in east Africa such as motorcycle group in Jinja recently visited by GDI students on fieldwork.
Along with Executive Director of the GDI, Professor David Hulme, Dr Banks personally donated the group’s first motorcycle. Now the project is up and running, the group has purchased their second motorbike and are close to buying their third. Long term, the scheme has the potential to triple the take-home income of the drivers, allowing them to plan and invest for the future.
Dr Banks said: “The concept of the savings group is simple. The first member receives a motorcycle and puts the 6,000 shillings usually spent on rental into a group savings account instead. Once there is enough money to purchase a second bike, two drivers then save until there is enough to buy a third and so on.
“Once all six members of the savings group own their own bike they continue to save until a seventh motorcycle is bought. This motorcycle is passed onto another savings group for the process to start again, potentially making it a scalable and sustainable business model.”
Bakari said: “I have always struggled with my life, but life always goes on. I have never stopped struggling and that is why I joined this project. But now, in my community, I am a role model. I am confident, I am no longer afraid of life. My life is my own responsibility, and not that of anyone else.” These sentiments echo those of the Federation who believe that development will be secured through self-reliant projects that build the strength of the community and enable them to engage with the government to get the infrastructure and services they need to advance their needs and interests. And this includes seeking more capital to replicate schemes such as this through the Federation’s loan fund, Jenga.
Every year an estimated 800,000 young men and women enter the labour market in Tanzania. These include school and college graduates and people who have migrated to urban areas from the countryside. The University has produced a short film about the scheme, its impact on the community and its potential for the future.
Renmin–Manchester Workshop on Inequality and Poverty in China
Will consumers change the world? A GDI masterclass with Tim Bartley
Corinna Braun-Munzinger, PhD researcher at the Global Development Institute
Does it make you feel good to know that all coffee sold at the university cafeteria is fair trade certified? Did you feel less comfortable about buying that £3 T-shirt when you saw the media reports about 1100 workers dying in the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh a few years back? And have you ever stood in the supermarket wondering if it is worth paying double the price for organic tomatoes? If your answer is yes to any of these questions, then you seem to be what Tim Bartley and his co-authors call a ‘conscientious consumer’.
During a Masterclass organised jointly by the Global Production Networks, Trade and Labour research group and the Rory and Elizabeth Brooks Doctoral College, we (a bunch of PhD students and academics passionate about finding out how to address sustainability in global production) had the chance to discuss with Tim his new book “Looking behind the Label”. In the book, the authors describe that sustainability labels such as fair trade or organic have seen a boom in the US and in European countries over the past years. They show how conscientious consumption relates to some individuals’ postmaterialist values, as well as to a number of wider societal factors, such as the structure of the retail sector – for example, it is easier to buy fair trade chocolate if your regular supermarket stocks it than if you have to go to a special ‘one-world shop’ to get it.
Tim Bartley and colleagues also go on to question whether conscientious consumerism is a good thing to improve social and environmental sustainability of production. On the one hand, it may show that people are more aware and put pressure on brands and retailers to improve sustainability – but on the other hand, conscientious consumerism could actually be counterproductive if it distracts from other options of political engagement or obscures governments’ responsibility for some of these issues. So there are two ways of looking at the rise of conscientious consumption.
The great thing about the book is that it does not stop there, but brings together the discussion on conscientious consumers with an analysis of the effectiveness of sustainability standards and labels used to certify the products that conscientious consumers buy. For example, does it actually make a difference for conserving the rainforest if you buy a roll of toilet paper with the Forest Stewardship Council label printed on it? To answer that question, the authors draw on case studies in food, paper, garments, and electronics. They show how sustainability standards and their effectiveness are strongly influenced by the specific characteristics of sectors and products, but also by the agendas of different actors involved in shaping these standards. Overall, their conclusion is a weak defence of conscientious consumerism: Conscientious consumption can make a difference sometimes and under some conditions. But it is certainly no panacea, and additional ways need to be found to address persisting unsustainable models of production in the global economy.
Many of us researchers in the Global Production Networks, Trade and Labour research group work on issues closely related to Tim’s book. Many of us have first-hand experience of trying to make sense of sustainability standards in food, garments or electronics in our PhD research and beyond. Coming together with Tim in a small masterclass setting was a great opportunity for each of us to raise burning questions, get feedback and discuss in an informal setting with a leading expert in the field.
Going beyond the book, participants in the masterclass seemed particularly interested in exploring the roles of Southern consumers and emerging Southern sustainability standards, as well as the interactions between private standards and domestic governance on working conditions global production. Conveniently, Tim is currently working on another book on transnational governance that digs deeper into several of these aspects… expect more in 2017. We were fortunate enough to get an outlook on this project – and another opportunity to ask questions – in Tim’s afternoon lecture at GDI. In case you missed it, listen to the podcast below.
Support women’s empowerment because it’s the right thing to do
Gabriela Zapata Roman, PhD researcher at the Global Development Institute
Last Thursday we had the visit of Secretary of State for International Development, Justine Greening, founding member and panellist of the UN Secretary General’s High Level Panel on Women’s 
Economic Empowerment. She came to The University of Manchester to hear the ideas of students, academics, and local NGOs on women’s economic empowerment, before the next panel meeting in July.
I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to represent Manchester students in the discussion organised by the Global Development Institute. It was a great challenge to prepare my speech, I spoke with several friends and colleagues about it, as I felt that should include not only my ideas, but also represent the voice of the students and reflect our critical view of women’s economic empowerment.
After highlighting some of the barriers that we have to overcome to be treated as equals in everyday life and in our professional life, I wanted to use one feature of my research topic to connect it with the idea used by the UN panel and Greening; that women, business and economies will benefit from our inclusion in the economic life.
My research is on inequality of opportunity, particularly analysing how to measure it. These methods include gender as a circumstance that one face. We did not choose to be born man or woman, and so our outcomes (like income, education, and so on) should not be different just because we are women. The idea of equalising opportunities is very appealing to policy makers as no one could be against equal opportunities among people! But the model used to measure inequality of opportunity in the labour market is not easy to interpret. For instance in Chile inequality of opportunity in the labour market was 19% for men, and 17% for women in 2013, these figures might be read as women having more opportunities than men which is not true. In reality total income inequality is much higher for women than men. Women have lower salaries and also our ceiling is lower. Thus, my thesis highlights how these measurements can be tricky and reinforce wrong ideas about the way that opportunities are distributed.
When I read the documents of the UN panel and the interviews that Justine Greening has given on the issue, and saw its core idea that empowerment is not only the ‘right’ thing to do but the ‘smart’ thing to do, since business and the economy will benefit from that, I thought that this idea is also very tricky.
In 1869 John Stuart Mill used similar arguments to advocate for woman rights, he argued that the whole society would benefit from more educated women who enter into the labour market, including their husbands because children would be raised better by smarter mothers. Undoubtedly 150 years ago men needed this sort of arguments to be convinced that women’s education and rights were worth it. So I see how catchy this slogan can be, and that could be very useful to convince men that they need more women in the economy. But I do not think this is the way that we need to be included if we really want to achieve women’s empowerment. We want to be included in economic life, and in every aspect of life equally because it is fair, it is a matter of justice not utilitarian efficiency. We deserve the same rights and opportunities not because we are useful to society, or to improve the economy. That utilitarian approach will be reinforcing the idea that we are not in the same position as men.
I am convinced that in order to achieve equal opportunity between men and women we need to not only focus on big policies like gender quotas, and equal salaries for the same job, but also give attention to those things that most of the time we do not even notice because they are too “natural” for us, like how we are treated in everyday life.
Real equality of opportunity is achieved when men and women, rich or poor, can freely choose the life they want to live and have the resources to do so. But if we have to change our behaviour from a young age to be accepted and rewarded, we will never be able to develop our full potential. Valerie Walkerdine, and Header Mendik’s research have shown that in the UK until primary education girls have the same results as boys, but at secondary school girls do worse in mathematics, in order to be valued and accepted by their teachers and male classmates.
To achieve our goal of women’s empowerment we will need the support of smart people like John Stuart Mill was at his time, and also we need to increase our awareness as women and make visible these facts in order to actively advocate action for women’s economic empowerment.
After the talk Greening asked the audience for their ideas about the barriers and what different actors (business, government, civil society, academia, etc.) can do to make a difference. People who didn’t get a chance to speak also had the opportunity to write down their suggestions. I transcribed these suggestions and sent them to the Secretary of State, who was very keen to use them in the next panel meeting in July, and we hope she will.
Once again I am thankful for have been part of this. Finally I would like to say that we as students and young researchers have an important role to play giving momentum to a broader gender equality agenda.
Academics Stand Against Poverty UK are looking for a short-term coordinator to get us off the ground!
Are you passionate about rigorous, context-sensitive and nuanced information reaching the public discourse to inform political decision-making? Do you enjoy a solid project management challenge and can you hit the ground running? Then we’d love to hear from you!
Academics Stand Against Poverty (ASAP) UK are recruiting a short-term, full-time coordinator to help us make the transition from a volunteer-led model to a formal funded organisation with capacity to build on our success to date.
ASAP UK is a volunteer-based organisation working on UK-wide projects to address the underlying causes of poverty. We maintain a network of over 250 academics and development professionals who are committed to addressing poverty in all its forms both internationally and domestically. We harness their knowledge and experience to deliver a flagship project each year, including our 2015 UK general election manifesto poverty audit. Now we are looking to expand and hire a coordinator to lead the organisation in this period of transition, working with the governance boards, our volunteers, and our wider network.
The ideal candidate will have experience of both fundraising and project initiation and management. If you have also been involved with establishing an organisation as a legal entity that would be a bonus, as would experience of working with academics, development organisations, and volunteers. You will be based at the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester for up to 13 weeks and be supported by our existing team of volunteers. We’d love you to start as soon as possible! If you’re interested please have a look at the attached full job description and send a CV and cover letter to asapukhr@gmail.com by Tuesday, 31st May 2016. We will be interviewing on the Monday, 6th June.
Save our chocolate!
Judith Krauss is a post-doctoral associate at the Rory and Elizabeth Brooks Doctoral College and researched cocoa sustainability for her PhD thesis.
Can I ask you a question? Do you like chocolate? If your answer is ‘yes’, as for 100% of my focus-group and public-engagement participants, you may be interested to know that the people manufacturing your favourite treats are not entirely sure where your fix’s key ingredient will come from four years from now.
Six years ago, projections that cocoa demand would outstrip supply by about 25% by 2020 began circulating. Factors contributing to the shortage concerns include: cocoa cultivation’s lacking attractiveness for younger generations given decades of low prices, productivity-maximising practices degrading limited production surfaces and the unknown variable of climate change, as well as only a handful of companies controlling the marketplace. The impending doom has prompted the chocolate sector to begin engaging with ‘cocoa sustainability’ to address these issues and safeguard its key ingredient’s long-term availability.
The bad news: nobody quite knows how to do that.
The good news: chocolate-industry actors have begun engaging in various fora and initiatives to address a problem together which is too monumental for any one stakeholder to tackle alone. One such forum, bringing together diverse chocolate-industry actors from civil society, public sector and private sector, is the World Cocoa Conference (WCC), taking place in the Dominican Republic from 22 to 25 May 2016. Stakeholders from all facets of the cocoa sector have congregated to discuss ‘Building bridges between producers and consumers’, with a view to ‘connecting the whole of the value chain’.
My PhD research sought to do just that, using a global production networks lens to incorporate voices from cocoa producers via companies, public sector and NGOs to chocolate consumers. Through in-depth interviews and participant observation in Latin America, I aimed to find out what cocoa producers, cooperatives and NGOs make of ‘cocoa sustainability’. Back in Europe, I sought to establish companies’, public-sector representatives’ and consumers’ take on the omnipresent term. In keeping with the WCC’s theme of building South-North bridges, I fed back through interviews, focus groups and public engagement what I had learned especially from Nicaraguan stakeholders.
Regarding the ‘cocoa sustainability’ challenge, my research produced some more good news and some more bad news. The bad news first: a key difficulty with the concept of ‘cocoa sustainability’ is that various actors bring different understandings of what it is or is to entail to the table. This polysemy on the one hand works in the concept’s favour, as its aspirational quality renders it a notion which diverse stakeholders happily agree on. However, it also paints over different framings of what ‘sustainability’ is to entail: some prioritise its potential to improve grower livelihoods through better prices and cultivation conditions, others emphasise its links to global environmental challenges; a third dimension concerns predominantly commercial concerns such as supply security, i.e. the business imperative which ‘sustainability’ has become in the sector.
The good news is, however, that because of cocoa stakeholders’ puzzlement at how to bring about ‘cocoa sustainability’, they are willing to rethink time-honoured processes and procedures. I believe this awareness is an opportunity to create genuine, fair partnerships between stakeholders throughout the supply chain. One avenue to get closer to some equitable conversations, I believe, could be the ‘constellations of priorities’ model which I developed in my work, a tool to (self-)assess stakeholder priorities so that all actors within an initiative can identify where their socio-economic, environmental and commercial drivers overlap, dovetail or collide.
My hope is that the model can help practitioners and researchers identify synergies and tensions, as some priorities are likely to be incommensurable, but many can be made more compatible through equitable engagement (cf. my website; podcasts, slides and reports in English, Spanish and German available as a thank-you to stakeholders).
More bad news emerging from my work: despite actors’ growing awareness, answers in the transformational spirit required by the challenges’ magnitude are mostly still in their infancy. In public-facing representations communicating to consumers initiatives’ meanings, stakeholders often forefront socio-economic and environmental objectives as the driver of their engagement. While purporting to ‘build bridges’ and playing into consumers’ desire to ‘help’, the charitable meanings created also paint initiatives as ‘nice-to-have’. This altruistic canvas hides from view the poor practices, incentivised by low prices and productivity-maximising pressures, which partly have brought about the current crisis. What is more, unbeknownst to consumers, initiatives can exacerbate the power asymmetries they purport to bridge between especially cocoa producers and chocolate companies. Through companies establishing certification schemes they oversee themselves and working directly with producers, they cut out intermediaries. While this approach can, much to growers’ delight, increase farm-gate prices, it also exacerbates corporate dominance and creates quasi-monopsonistic structures, leaving producers with few or no other sales outlets.
In my view, more equitable connections are crucial to tap into Southern stakeholders’ expertise through genuine participation and empowerment and transform the sector towards greater viability. While certification schemes such as Fairtrade or organic can offer part of the answer and reduce the likelihood of infractions vis-à-vis most uncertified chocolate, ever more stakeholders agree they have to move beyond. I would argue that supporting smaller-scale cocoa processing and chocolate production in the global South could help promote greater value capture at origin, more viable practices and broader genetic diversity– Nicaraguan chocolate proved a particular favourite for my focus-group and public-engagement participants. To build genuine consumer-producer bridges, conduct prioritising equity and fairness, towards humans and the environment, would indeed be a principle worth applying in cocoa, but also far beyond.
It is up to you what you make of all this good and bad news, whether you opt to order industrial volumes of your favourite chocolate, figure out how to shock-freeze chocolate and then buy a bigger freezer, or choose another route. It is up to consumers, with the limited power of their purse-strings, and chocolate stakeholders, with the virtually unlimited power of their production-network tentacles, to make the informed, transformational choices necessary to help ‘save our chocolate’: living incomes for Southern stakeholders, production practices which protect rather than destroy the environment, and interactions in a spirit of equity and fairness rather than charity.
However, in light of the crisis, I would advise you to take to heart two fundamental truths which have made my PhD – aka thinking about chocolate 24 hours a day, seven days a week for three years – infinitely more enjoyable:
– Chocolate is proof that God wants us to be happy.
– Chocolate comes from cocoa, which grows on a tree. That makes it a plant. Therefore, chocolate is practically salad. Eat up!