This article discusses a new development in the relationships between private sustainability standards and governments, one in which Southern governments reclaim the authority from mainly Northern-based businesses and nongovernmental organizations. It examines how the Indonesian government, a forerunner in this field, responds to the private certification of palm oil. The results of this in-depth study are compared with similar trends in the coffee and cocoa sectors in Indonesia. The article observes that a change takes place from a nonresponsive stance, a modest involvement in terms of sustaining the implementation of private certifications, to an active development of alternative public national standards and certifications. The article defines some factors that facilitate the development of Southern public standards as an addition or alternative to private regulations and reviews the implications for the future of private standards and certification.

This paper investigates multi-stakeholder arrangements initiated by businesses and NGOs from the North that aim to enhance a more sustainable agricultural production at specific localities in Southern countries. We aim to better understand the search for concerted action in multi-actor arrangements. Therefore, this paper presents a diagnostic framework with three strategic challenges the partnership projects are facing: linking global economic objectives to local needs, values and interests; bridging public and private interests and responsibilities; and seeking trade-offs between social, environmental and economic values. Starting from the partnerships' Theory of Change, this diagnostic framework is applied to comparative case studies of partnership projects in the cocoa sector in Indonesia, which are part of a Northern-based public-private partnership to improve farmers' prospective. It is concluded that the economic reality faced by the farmers differs from that of the Northern actors; collaboration with governments is difficult because of different organizational cultures; and the partnership projects underestimate the strength of vested social relations the smallholders are part of. Overall, the initiators of the partnerships seem to work with a too restricted economic interpretation of the local reality.

This study demonstrates how a bottom-up agricultural development project, rooted in the practices of the smallholders and their (local) networks, might relate to global sustainability standards and certification schemes. Such an initiative starts with the economic interests of the farmers and may result in sustainability certification afterwards. An approach was investigated to implement more sustainable coffee production at the local level in Indonesia – the Mediated Partnership Model (Motramed). We conceptualize this model, initiated by an Indonesian research institute, as a form of collaborative governance to create a new, more sustainable management practice. We particularly focus on four critical mechanisms in the partnering process: defining a common problem, building trust, exploring collaborative advantages, and establishing a leadership role. Empirical research was conducted in three regions: Bali, Flores, and Java. In conclusion, we define several critical factors that need to be addressed to further develop similar bottom-up partnerships for more varied agricultural commodities.