Public–private partnerships in global value chains

New development approaches increasingly rely on partnerships between public and private sectors to leverage private capital and utilize traditional grant-based funding more efficiently. Yet, there is little understanding about how these partnerships in value chains affect small producers. This chapter draws on lessons from examining three case studies from Indonesia, Kenya and Rwanda. It finds that partnerships are not a panacea and result in mixed outcomes. Effective targeting of partnership interventions requires a proper understanding of the production system at the local, regional and global levels. Achieving results in scale relies on incentivizing and aligning partner interests, configuring an industry vision, and catalysing investment to build productive capability and bargaining power of small producers. Whereas inclusion of small producers is often pursued as an objective, farm and non-farm employment opportunities arising from partnerships can provide more effective vehicles to poverty reduction and better income for the poor workers. Appropriate measurement of these outcomes is inevitably linked to adaptability in definitions of measurement targets and partnership approaches. The chapter discusses the implication of these findings applying the global value chain framework and the Alliances for Action (A4A) approach.