Analysis of partnerships between agricultural cooperatives and development actors: A national survey in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The partnerships between agricultural cooperatives and development actors play a critical role in meeting development challenges and building cooperative sustainability. The objective of this study was to analyze the key characteristics of engagements established between agricultural cooperatives and other actors and determine their success level. An analytical framework was developed to highlight nine areas, namely partnership configuration, stakeholders, objectives of the partnerships, partnership types, partnership stages, communication methods, achieved outcomes, partnership evaluation, and partnership sustainability. The targets were all agricultural cooperatives building associations with other actors between 2016 and 2020 in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, the study covered 69 partnerships founded by 32 agricultural cooperatives. The results revealed that the cooperatives involved in partnerships essentially provide farming inputs and equipment for their stakeholders and capacity building and training purposes. The public sector was the leading actor that collaborated with agricultural cooperatives in inter-sector partnerships. The findings also showed that 55.1% of the partnerships were “strategic partnerships” in cases of both independent value formation and integrative partnerships. By focusing on mapping the partnerships, this study presents beneficial information for policy-makers working on how agricultural cooperatives dealt with the other actors and the lessons gathered to build future sustainability collaborations.

A Framework for Quantifying the Strength of Partnerships between Agricultural Cooperatives and Development Actors: A Case Study in Saudi Arabia

“…Selecting the right partner suited to implement a partnership is linked to several factors, such as the partnership's objectives, nature of activities, and partnership typologies [33]. Therefore, building trust-based collaboration between agricultural cooperatives and other actors needs to consider four areas to identify the right counterpart: solid criteria for selection, institutional form of a partnership (Intra-sector or inter-sector), nationality of partners, and the sectors that the partner is belonged [17].…”

“…In cooperatives, partnerships established between agricultural cooperatives and other actors mainly target the members of cooperatives [58]. Some partnerships or programs within the same partnership may extend their target people to include a wide range of farmers in various fields, poor or low-income farmers, youth, rural women, or people with disabilities [17]. Determining the target people list accurately depends on the partner-ship's objectives, the types of goods and services provided, geographical coverage, and the cooperative's specialization [10].…”

“…The variables of the data collection tool were developed based on a literature review highlighting partnerships between non-profit organizations and development actors [17,19,22,28,32,33,38,41,60,70]. A semi-structured questionnaire was developed to collect data from each partnership.…”

“…Nonetheless, internal factors stimulate partners to work collaboratively for mutual benefit. However, the cooperative capacity of the partnerships influences the strength of the partnership [17]. According to Vayaliparampil, Page and Wolterstorff [4], the cooperative capacity is conceptualized by nine elements: balance between costs and benefits, self-management, fast and fair conflict resolution, fair and inclusive decision-making, group identity and understanding of purpose, graduated sanctions, monitoring behaviors and performance, minimal recognition by stakeholders, and the ability to adapt.…”

“…More comprehensively, it supplies a holistic framework describing the fundamental components for successfully building partnerships. This original model is derived and developed based on previous papers of Hazem S. Kassem and his team [17,19,22]. These authors analyzed the nature of the partnerships built by non-profit organizations with other sectors.…”