Institutional Learning and Change Initiative

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Abstract:

Public?private partnerships constitute a new mode of operation in many fields of development, including the development of innovation in developing-country agriculture. Capacities to identify opportunities, develop common interests, and negotiate commitments are prerequisites for successful public?private partnerships. Yet, many public?private partnerships fail due to lack of both skills among the partnering agents and efforts to strengthen these skills. The International Service for National Agricultural Research?on its own from 2002 until 2003, and as a division of the International Food Policy Research Institute thereafter?has studied 124 public? private partnerships in agriculture in nine Latin American countries through its initiative on public? private partnerships for Agro-Industrial Research in Latin America, (Hartwich et al. 2005). The project also supported processes of partnership building in seven agricultural production chains in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and El Salvador by holding awareness-building workshops, mapping agrichain development opportunities, undertaking chain analysis, identifying common interests, negotiating and designing partnerships, and supporting the development of partnership agreements. Support was also given in documenting the above meetings to ensure that proposals were developed and formal agreements established. In all cases, partners sought additional external resources to complement the contributions of the partners. This paper examines these seven cases of public?private partnership building in which privatesector companies, producer associations, and research organizations engage in collaboration for the purpose of developing innovations in agricultural production and value chains. The paper considers different points of entry to partnership building, emulating best practices. The paper describes (a) how common interests among multiple stakeholders have been identified; (b) how partners have been motivated to participate in partnerships; (c) how the roles of different brokers within or outside the partnerships have fostered partnership development; and (d) how the contributions of partners have been negotiated to ensure that partnership arrangements are in alignment with the interests of the partners, their capacities, and the prevailing technological and market opportunities. The paper targets policymakers and administrators in agricultural development, and collaborators in research and innovation projects who are interested in issues of how best to build partnerships among public and private agents.