Title: AFRICA DIASPORA Agriculture: An Investment or Skills Option? Building Public-Private Partnerships. Andrew Bennett- Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture
1AFRICA DIASPORA Agriculture An Investment or
Skills Option? Building Public-Private
Partnerships.Andrew Bennett- Syngenta Foundation
for Sustainable Agriculture
2CONTENTS
- About Foundations
- Are partnerships needed?
- What makes partnerships work?
- Coping with the unexpected
- Managing liability and risk
- Sharing benefits
- Conclusions.
3Why Companies have Foundations
- Going beyond CSR and being a good citizen to
build and influence the future! - Reach future potential customers, where markets
currently fail 5-10 year horizons - Access and influence policy makers, organisations
and communities - Stimulate debate and find solutions to key issues
- Exploit opportunities
- Tax remission
- Improve image and perception
- Deploy Company know-how and expertise
- Build employee interest, self respect - staff
development
4Syngenta Foundation for Sustainable Agriculture
- Mission
- To increase opportunities and choice
- for poor rural communities in semi-arid areas
- to improve their livelihoods
- through sustainable innovation in agriculture.
- Through partnerships
5The role of Foundations
- Corporate giving is increasing and growing at
5-6 every year eg Bill Gates, etc. - In 2004 private giving in the US was nearly
250bn of which corporate giving was 5 but 90
of this was spent on domestic social issues! - But what makes SFSA different?
- Small, flexible, responsive and with good
networks - Non-political
- Interface and synergies between public, civil
society and business - Emphasis on delivery
- Access to expertise in science, business, IPR and
delivery - Building partnerships
- But partnerships take time, trust and clear
purposes and rewards and these will be
different - There are gaps in the technology delivery and
market systems. Where small and medium
enterprises are weak or absent rural development
usually underperforms.
6Current Foundation Activities
- Eritrea soil and water management, GIS, millet
breeding, tissue culture - Mali Cinzana Station, IER support, rural
development, eco-carbon - Kenya Insect resistant maize, transgenic and
conventional approaches - Uganda Farmer information systems
- India soils and water management and vegetable
production now a Syngenta Foundation India - Brazil Nordeste SMEs and income generation
- Research
- CGIAR membership
- Striga control
- Millet and Sorghums marker assisted breeding
(MAB)
7Syngenta at a glance
- Total Sales 8.1bn
- Expenditure on R and D - 822m
- Crop Protection 6.3bn
- Herbicides 2.4bn Fungicidies 1.8bn
Insecticides -1.1bn and other 0.9bn - Seeds - 1.8bn
- Field crops 0.9bn other . 0.3bn, veg and
flowers 0.6bn. - By Region
- EAME 34
- NAFTA 33
- LA - 18
- Asia and Pacific 15
8Building public-private partnerships
- Golden rice increasing the beta - carotene
content with Uni Freiburg, IRRI, NARS and
Syngenta Company - Insect Resistant Maize Bt and traditional with
KARI, CIMMYT and Rockefeller -KENYA - Millet and sorghum annotation- using genomic
information/synteny - with Syngenta Company and
BecA and ICRISAT - AFRICA - Soil and water management/GIS with CDE Bern,
Uni Asmara and NARI - ERITREA - Marker assisted breeding with BecA and NARES
and ICRISAT W and E AFRICA - 2 IFPRI studies of CGIAR experience
- Commercial practice
9Challenge for agriculture
- Delivering
- More production and productivity
- More ecosystem services
- More income
- For more people
- Giving a greater diversity and choice
- Using
- Less water
- Less land
- Less energy
- Less environmental damage
- Tools Partnerships, policies, awareness,
capacity, infrastructure, institutions, markets
and technologies
10 Areas of Controversythe faultlines-
pro-poor/pro-environment
- Large or small commercial or family farm
- Pro-poor employed or self-employed
- Public or private goods are IPRs a problem?
- Rural space what ecosystem services, who
decides?l - Markets subsidies or free markets, fair trade,
sourcing - Productivity efficiency, livelihoods or
environmental services - Production systems organic or non-organic,
intensification. Minimum, zero and conservation
tillage. Eco-agriculture - Technology ICT, nanotechnology, biotechnology,
GMOs, frankenfoods, biosafety, regulation - Assessment of Risk different priorities, values
and perceptions
11Structural Changes
- Farmers declining in numbers
- Farmers ageing, sickening
- Increasing proportion of women headed farming
families - Consolidation in the value chain and changes in
economic power - Consumers increasingly interested in supply chain
issues
12The Coffee chain - Venezuela
500000 growers
28 retailers
50 million consumers
4 roasters
13The banana split
Includes 5 EU Tariff
Source Action Aid
14Are ppps needed? - YES
- Scale of challenges beyond resources of
individuals, organisations and even countries - Finance, knowledge, expertise, technology.
know-how. - Demand is growing.
- Demand is diversifying and becoming more complex
eg biofuels. - Human, natural and financial resources are
finite. - Poverty and hunger must be reduced.
- Energy sources and climate change are impacting
- Globalisation is creating new inter-dependencies.
- Different mixes of partnerships are need to raise
funding, pool expertise and to have an impact and
create critical mass. - Mutual benefits and synergy
15Rural livelihood improvement depends on rural
economic growth and ability to capture
opportunities
Rural Development
rural economic growth
community development
connect rural and urban markets
ability to capture new opportunities
SMEs
finance
business skills
energy
Carbon finance
infrastructure
business climate
16What makes partnerships work? People and Ideas
- Voluntary and purposeful
- Leadership and preparedness to take risks
- Clear roles and responsibilities
- Shared objectives
- Constant communications
- Incentives and rewards
- Acceptance of different motivations and
comparative advantage, but a balance between the
partners - Access to resources
- Trust and transparency
- Time
- Progress and luck
17When and where is partnering needed?The partners
may change with time.
- Raising finance donors, investors, etc
- Contact and interaction with beneficiaries
civil society - universities, local government,
farmers associations, consumer surveys - Designing the research agenda research partners
and managers - Conducting and managing research consortia,
infrastructure - Accessing expertise and IP - owners, legal
services etc - Product development business and investment
- Strengthening delivery systems- seed companies,
SMEs, NGOs. Farmers associations etc - Strengthening rural services SMEs, farmers
associations and NGOs - Providing markets and processing food
processors, retailers, consumers associations
18Formal or informal? Why have
contracts?
- Build trust
- Clearly define responsibilities and obligations
- Accountability and increased transparency
- Manage risk
- Share benefits
- Set out time lines and stop-go stages
- Set out rewards benefit sharing
- Set out penalties and precautions
19Ownership does it matter?Yes!
- Intellectual property rights empowers and
protects the inventor - Provides codes for access, benefit sharing and
use - It protects and encourages investment in delivery
- International Public Goods who will invest and
deliver who will benefit? - With rights come accountability, responsibility
and liabilities!!!!
20Coping with the unexpected Managing Risks and
Liabilities
- Identify and quantify the potential risks, the
likelihood of their occurring, the scale of their
impact, possible counter-measures, the means for
seeing them coming, and the ability to respond
quickly - Establish strong technical advisory and executive
committees that meet regularly - Assign clear roles and responsibilities for all
the partners - Provide staff training
- Develop effective reporting and information
systems vigilance and response - Encourage transparency and engagement with all
stakeholders and develop a dialogue with them on
the issues - Build trust amongst the partners.
- Make decisions even if they are unpopular and
implement them -
21Lessons
- Partnerships take time but should also be time
limited - They should be purposeful
- Ownership, trust and responsiveness are important
- Time lines must be realistic
- Look for complementarity
- Personalities are important
- Capacity issues
- The need for consensus
- External events - happen!!
22Conclusions
- Partnerships are essential to ensure critical
mass and safe and effective delivery. - They are about people wanting to work together to
achieve something that they could do on their
own. - Partners should bring different skills and
resources to the partnership - Some formality is necessary
- Early wins help to build confidence and trust
- Partnerships can help manage risk but they
cannot remove it - African diaspora could play a unique and
valueable role in supporting SME development
though investment and business skills - But understanding and patience are important