The plush ballroom at the Sheraton hotel in New York City is in many ways as far as you can get from Kenya’s Machakos County. But that hotel, and others like it, are often the launching points of partnerships or initiatives that find their ways to rural communities.
So when Procter & Gamble makes a commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting or Nespresso announces it will support smallholder coffee farmer training, or the U.S. Agency for International Development and Coca-Cola pledge to work together to incorporate smallholders in supply chains, what happens next? What do those commitments look like on the ground in a village, a local factory or a farm?
Devex visited a P&G supported water project implemented by a small community-based organization, a processing plant that supplies Coca-Cola as part of a partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and a coffee farming community where TechnoServe is implementing a Nespresso partnership. Here’s a look at how, despite their best efforts, partnerships face challenges related to communication, sustainability and where they fit in a broader scope of policy or planning.