On Friday September 21, 2018, an expert meeting (by invitation only) is organized by the Global Challenges Programme (GCP) project group “Intermediaries in inclusive business networks for scaling food security in East & West Africa”. The meeting focuses on the role of intermediary organizations in supporting cross border public private partnerships in developing inclusive business strategies for food security in developing countries.

Why

Companies play an increasingly important role in reducing poverty in developing countries. Collaborating through public private partnerships help to reduce risk. These risks consist of institutional and cultural differences between the parties involved and the informal context in which they have to work. What is striking is the important role that intermediary organizations play in starting and guiding these partnerships and in developing the inclusive business strategy. Over the past three years, Wageningen UR has been researching the characteristics of these intermediary organizations and the opportunities and challenges they face in this type of collaboration. This research is funded by NWO-WOTRO. The research was carried out in collaboration with BoP Inc, ICRA, IFDC and a number of international companies and African development organizations. We have mapped more than 50 intermediary organizations, and developed 4 in-depth case studies conducted in Nigeria and Kenya. These case studies focus on the cooperation between Dutch companies and local partners to improve food security.

What

In this meeting the GCP project group (follow this link for their project page) presents the most important results of this research. These results are then discussed with the participants in interactive group sessions.

Information

Participation is by invitation only. The meeting takes place at the BoP Innovation Center in Utrecht, from 09:00 till 21:00, followed by an informal lunch. For more information, contact Myrtille Danse,