Public private partnerships in global food governance: business engagement and legitimacy in the global fight against hunger and malnutrition

Abstract

International audienceThis article compares two transnational public-private partnerships against hunger and malnutrition, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and the International Alliance Against Hunger with regard to their degree of business involvement and their input and output legimacy. We examine the participation of stakeholders, the accountability and transparency of the decision-making process, and the perceived provision of a public good. We identify a link between business involvement and output legitimacy, and we discuss the implications for public and private food governance

Private agrifood governance: conclusions, observations and provocations

“…For example, the case of GAIN illustrates how relatively small amounts of private capital can have a wideranging impact on the level and direction of donor funding, such that the ultimate impact of this public-private partnership is well beyond the immediate actions of the private firms that are involved (Kaan and Liese 2011). Of course, this problem is not confined to private governance of agrifood systems, an issue that is discussed in more detail below.…”

“…A number of the articles highlight how private governance, of differing forms and across distinct contexts, tends to have rather weak input legitimacy, employing the metrics of participation, transparency and accountability. For example, there has been very limited participation of stakeholders in the processes underlying private food safety standards such as the BRC Global Standard or GlobalGAP (Fuchs et al 2011b), public-private partnerships such as GAIN (Kaan and Liese 2011), and sustainability standards for bio-fuels such as the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) (Partzsch 2011).…”

“…In order to come to more general conclusions about legitimacy, trade-offs have to be made, whether explicitly or implicitly, between the constituent dimensions. For example, GAIN is found to perform well with respect to some aspects of output legitimacy (Kaan and Liese 2011). It apparently has achieved appreciable reductions in micronutrient deficiency in certain developing countries at low cost.…”

“…The articles largely present a series of case studies drawn from diverse agrifood system contexts. These include, for example, sustainability in bio-fuel production (Partzsch 2011), private retail standards for food safety and sustainability (Fuchs et al 2011b), public-private partnerships directed at alleviating world hunger (Kaan and Liese 2011) and promoting sustainability (Gregoratti 2011). Rather than attempting to summarize these cases, this concluding paper aims to highlight a number of key cross-cutting themes and issues.…”

Going Against the Grain of Optimism: Flour Fortification in Pakistan

“…2 Moreover, as public-private partnership models have progressively replaced government or donor-administered programmes in developing countries (Danton-Hill 1998;Yach et al 2010), food fortification champions such as GAIN have constructed persuasive narratives that link technocratic optimism with corporate power. The linear outputoriented approach of these narratives predisposes them towards ignoring broader issues and causes of hunger and malnutrition (Kaan and Liese 2010). A fortification programme, after all, is more complex and involves coordinated actions by a range of players, than a tightly administered trial.…”