Cross-sector partnerships tackle complex problems like food insecurity and climate change, yet often struggle to reconcile differing views on what to preserve or change.
A recent analysis published in the journal Business & Society explores this tension, drawing on case studies including the Southern Africa Food Lab, which has convened businesses, farmers, government and community groups since 2010.
In a report from The Conversation, the researchers note that while participants in such initiatives often agree on the diagnosis of a problem, they frequently diverge on the solution. For some, the priority is resilience—maintaining supply chains through shocks.
For others, transformation is key, which could mean shifting toward agroecological farming and altering the very structures their partners seek to protect.
Some emphasize resilience, such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, founded in 2004, or the Marine Stewardship Council, which certifies fisheries.
Critics have accused such schemes of certifying business as usual rather than moving industries away from extractive models.
Common approaches
Other partnerships are more explicitly transformative. Oxfam and the Stockholm Environment Institute, for example, track the emissions of the wealthiest individuals and push for policies that confront concentrated wealth.
Such partnerships often face resistance from the industries and governments whose models they question, and they struggle for funding precisely because they challenge entrenched interests.
A third group attempts both, working at different scales. CGIAR, the global agricultural research partnership, helps local communities adapt to climate change while advocating for transformative shifts in global food and trade policy.
This path is promising but difficult, as what partners agree on at one scale can be threatening to people at another.
The European Green Deal’s continental ambitions, for instance, collided with farmers protesting for their livelihoods in early 2024, leading to a rollback of several environmental rules.
What helps
The review points to three practices that can help partnerships manage this tension. First, pay attention to early warning signs.
A study of France’s river basin committees found they took years to deliberate on climate change despite signals that basin temperatures had already risen. Second, argue honestly.
Silencing awkward voices tends to backfire, and power imbalances need to be named. The Food Lab’s convenors found progress depended on moving beyond polite exchange to a deeper dialogue where imbalances between small-scale farmers and corporate managers could be discussed.
Third, follow through and persevere. A partnership in Milan set up neighborhood hubs during the COVID-19 crisis and, rather than winding down, built them into a lasting structure for tackling food waste and insecurity.
The Food Lab’s argument over supply chains, the authors conclude, was not a failure of partnership but the real work of surfacing underlying differences in priorities.
Source: The Conversation