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Table of Contents
Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................. 2 List of illustrations ................................................................................................................................... 3 List of abbreviations ................................................................................................................................ 4 Introduction............................................................................................................................................. 5 Defining hunger ....................................................................................................................................... 8 Issue life cycle of Hunger ....................................................................................................................... 10 Literature review ................................................................................................................................... 12 Notes regarding the current literature.............................................................................................. 14 Responsibility attribution ...................................................................................................................... 16 Interests............................................................................................................................................. 16 Trade-offs and paradoxes.................................................................................................................. 17 Responsibility .................................................................................................................................... 17 Responsibility for causes ................................................................................................................... 19 Partnerships .......................................................................................................................................... 21 The necessity of cooperation ............................................................................................................ 21 Current partnerships and initiatives.................................................................................................. 22 Effectiveness...................................................................................................................................... 24 Leadership ............................................................................................................................................. 26 Desired leadership styles................................................................................................................... 26 Limitations ............................................................................................................................................. 31 Bibliography........................................................................................................................................... 32
Executive Summary
Currently an estimated 239 million people in sub-Saharan Africa suffer from hunger. With 30% of the population this is the worlds largest proportion. In this paper hunger is defined as the state of persons, whose food intake regularly provides less than their minimum energy requirements. As hunger is caused by an institutional void where clear rules and regulations are lacking, it can be classified as an interface issue between market and civil society. Even though hunger issue impacts the lives of many on a daily basis, the public interest in the issue has been declining since 2008. This implies issue fatigue, which means that people have seen so many similar affairs that they are no longer impressed by and interested in news about the issue. The issue of hunger is thus in the post-maturity stage of the issue life cycle. According to academic literature there are various causes for hunger in Africa, including low agricultural productivity, infectious diseases, natural disasters and war. Scholars seem to largely disagree in regards to the causality between hunger and these causes, as well as about the importance of each cause. Therefore it can be concluded that it is likely that all the factors mentioned contribute to the issue to some degree. Literature falls short in assigning responsibility in regard to the issue and focuses more on discussing causes and solutions. As hunger is an interface issue, it is implied that the primary responsibility lies with the market and civil society. When looking at the separate causes of hunger, however, it is noticeable that not only the market and civil society are responsible, but also the state plays a major role. Therefore it can be concluded that all societal spheres are responsible for hunger and should collectively contribute to a solution. This notion can be supported by the fact that all three societal spheres have an interest in resolving hunger. This implies that all three societal spheres also have an incentive to contribute to the eradication of hunger, which is illustrated by various initiatives that are undertaken by the state, market and civil society. All three actors do however also face tradeoffs, for example between the short term and the long term. This makes coming to a solution more difficult, as each actor has its own interests in addition to its commitment to the cause. Regardless of who holds responsibility, cooperation on global, national and local level is necessary to solve such complex issues as world hunger. Not only because the responsibilities cannot be clearly attributed to one societal sphere, but also because no sector has sufficient resources and capabilities. Therefore it is no surprise that the use of partnerships to solve issues like hunger is increasing. In order for a partnership to be optimally effective, all partners need to share the analysis of the issue, the vision, and ambition. In the case of hunger, the vision is shared, but the analysis and ambition are shared only partly between different actors. There is therefore room for improvement. Lastly, the literature shows that cooperation between the societal spheres and structural change are necessary to resolve hunger. The leadership styles that match these needs are connecting, transformational and collective leadership. We therefore conclude that for leaders of all spheres these leadership styles are most important in solving the issue of hunger. It was concluded that an important barrier for increased effectiveness of partnerships and for structural changes, is issue fatigue. This impedes the collective efforts of all three societal spheres and results in the provision of only the most necessary aid. Therefore, the issue of hunger should be reframed in a positive way, emphasizing the opportunities that exist for all spheres in eradicating hunger. Transformational, connecting as well as collective leadership are necessary to make structural changes and to bring together key people of all spheres who can collectively solve the issue.
List of illustrations
Table 1: Methodological information ...................................................................................... 10 Table 2: Causes that contributed to the peaks .......................................................................... 10 Table 3: Different causes of hunger in Africa .......................................................................... 12 Table 4: Responsibilities for the causes of hunger ................................................................... 19 Table 5: Partnerships in tackling the issue of hunger in Africa ............................................... 22 Table 6: Overview of leaders from each societal sphere ......................................................... 27
List of abbreviations
AAHM BAACH FAO FIVIMS IFAD IFPRI ILC MDGs NGO OPEC THP UN UNICEF UNDP UN CERF WEF WFP
Alliance Against Hunger and Malnutrition Business Alliance Against Chronic Hunger Food and Agriculture Organization Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Mapping Systems International Fund for Agricultural Development International Food Policy Research Institute Issue Life Cycle Millennium Development Goals Non-Governmental Organization Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries The Hunger Project United Nations United Nations Childrens Fund United Nations Development Programme United Nations Emergency Response Fund World Economic Forum World Food Programme
Introduction
No one really knows how many people exactly suffer from hunger, but the most recent estimate by the FAO released in 2010 counts 925 million people being undernourished (FAO, 2010). This is 13.6 per cent of the estimated global population of 6.8 billion (World Hunger, 2011). Of this amount, around 239 million people live in sub-Saharan Africa, where they suffer from acute, chronic or hidden hunger. Even though the number of undernourished people in Africa is smaller than in Asia and the Pacific (578 million), with 30 per cent of the population, the proportion is highest in the world (FAO, 2010)(see Factsheet: Hunger in Africa below). Therefore the Millennium Declaration of the United Nations called for special attention to Africa and its needs to develop (United Nations, 2000). Overall, to tackle the issue of hunger in Africa and other continents, the target of Goal 1 of the United Nations (UN) Millennium Development goals (MDGs) to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger envisions to reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger (UNDP, 2011). However, so far, the goal has not been reached and the issue is not solved yet. It remains very urgent as acute hunger crises, such as currently the famine in the Horn of Africa, show. The cause of this crisis is the worst drought in 60 years which has hit the areas of northern Kenya, south-eastern Ethiopia, southern Somalia and Djibouti, leading to 10 million people in need of food aid (The Economist, 2011). These urgent crises are only the top of the iceberg compared to the largely invisible problem of chronic hunger (Sanchez et al., 2005). The aim of this paper is to provide insight in the issue of hunger and give suggestions on the actions that could be taken to address the issue in de coming years. In order to do this three questions have been developed that will be answered in this paper: 1. What are the causes of hunger and how are they linked to the responsibilities of various stakeholders? 2. What are the current efforts that exist in addressing hunger?
3. How should hunger be addressed in the coming years? The questions will be addressed by firstly looking at which societal sphere (governments, firms, and/or civil society) holds responsibility and secondly by analysing initiatives and partnerships where responsibility is being taken. Chapter one builds the basis for describing the complexity of the issue by bringing the related keywords into a context. Moreover, these keywords are analysed based on their presence in the media to depict the issue life cycle of hunger and define the stage the issue is currently in. Chronic hunger for example receives much less attention in the media than for example acute famines (Sanchez et al., 2005), which are more prominently discussed. Chapters two and three depict how in literature scholars have extensively discussed causes and have to a certain extent defined who holds responsibility in solving them. Attributing the responsibility of stopping hunger can be done by linking responsibilities to the many causes leading to not only acute hunger, as currently in the Horn of Africa, but also to more long-term chronic hunger. Moving from the description of who holds responsibility in solving this issue, the paper shifts to analysing current activities where responsibilities are taken. Different actors have taken on leading roles in addressing the issue and raising awareness, and others have formed partnerships to tackle the issue on a global, national, and local level. However, as the current number of hungry people in Africa is not declining and in many countries the MDGs are unlikely to be achieved, it is important to continue looking for solutions. Therefore, this paper finishes with suggestions of directions in which solutions should go.
Note: The Global Hunger Index is composed of the proportion of the undernourished as a percentage of the population, the prevalence of underweight children under the age of five and the mortality rate of children under the age of five (calculated average, in percentage).
Defining hunger
There are several definitions of hunger and related concepts, such as malnutrition, undernourishment, and food insecurity (FAO, 2011a). Hunger itself has been defined as an uncomfortable or painful sensation caused by insufficient food energy consumption (FAO, 2011a). Taking into account that everyone feels hungry occasionally, in this context hunger refers to the manifestation of hunger over a longer time period, also called chronic hunger or undernourishment (FAO, 2011b). This is defined as The state of persons, whose food intake regularly provides less than their minimum energy requirements. The average minimum energy requirement per person is about 1800 kcal per day. The exact requirement is determined by a persons age, body size, activity level and physiological conditions such as illness, infection, pregnancy and lactation (FAO, 2011b). This definition already shows the difficulties in measuring hunger (Mason, 2002; FAO, 2000a), which also results in the diverging numbers of people suffering from hunger. Of people suffering from hunger, 90 percent suffer from chronic hunger, and despite the global attention during famines and starvations, this acute hunger only represents a small part (Sanchez et al., 2005). The third type of hunger is hidden hunger (Sanchez et al., 2005) and has been related to the term malnutrition, which is defined as a broad term for a range of conditions that hinder good health, caused by inadequate or unbalanced food intake or from poor absorption of food consumed (FAO, 2011b). This implies undernutrition (food deprivation) as well as overnutrition (excessive food intake in relation to energy requirements), characterized by an inadequate intake of protein, energy and micronutrients (FAO, 2011a; FAO, 2011b). Malnutrition can be an outcome of food insecurity, but can also be caused by insufficient health services or an unhealthy environment (FAO, 2011a; UNICEF, 2002). Food insecurity again exists when people lack access to sufficient amounts of safe and nutritious food (FAO, 2011b). As the opposite, food security, is defined as access
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to food at all times (World Food Summit, 1996), insecurity may also include the limited and uncertain ability of securing food (Anderson, 1990). Not all people that are food insecure are at that point hungry (FAO, 2011a) as food insecurity has other causes than direct hunger (FAO, 2011a). Food insecurity can be chronic, seasonal or transitory (FIVIMS, 2011) and it can occur at household, regional or national level. As in the report of the United Nations MDGs (Sanchez et al., 2005) in this paper we use the word hunger to encompass both food and nutritional insecurity. As this paper focuses on hunger in Africa, overnutrition however is excluded.
2008
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After 2008, media attention is declining, even though at the moment a major famine in the horn of Africa is taking place. This implies issue fatigue, which means that people have seen so many similar affairs that they are no longer impressed by and interested in news about the issue (Schoonman, 1995; Van Tulder and van der Zwart, 2006). Especially in a time where other issues such as the global economic situation and global warming seem to gain importance, it is not surprising that an old issue like hunger moves to the background. We therefore conclude that the issue hunger is in the post-maturity stage. A potential problem with the ILC is that the newspapers that were chosen are all English and have a primary focus on the West (in particular on the US since most newspapers are American).Taking this into account, one has to be careful to generalize the results of the ILC to other parts of the world other than the West (presumed that the US shares largely the same interests as Europe).
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Literature review
In order to shed some light on the causes of hunger, a literature review is needed. The aim of this literature review is to see how wide the explanations of hunger go and to what extent there is consensus amongst scholars regarding this topic. Table 3 presents an overview of different causes encountered. Table 3: Different causes of hunger in Africa Agricultural productivity Bryceson & Fonseca (2006); Green (1986); Sanchez & Swaminatha n (2005); Sanchez et al. (2005) Infectious diseases Bryceson & Fonseca (2006); Sanchez et al. (2005) Politics Bryceson & Fonseca (2006); Clemens et al. (2007); Clover (2003); Green (1986); Misselhorn (2005) War / conflict Baro & Deubel (2006); Clover (2003); Green (1986) Infrastruct ure Green (1986); Sanchez et al. (2005) Socioeconomic Natural factors disasters Bryceson & Baro & Fonseca Deubel (2006); (2006); Green Green (1986); (1986); Misselhorn Misselhorn (2005); Sen (2005); (1981); Verdin et Verdin et al. al. (2005) (2005)
In Africa, most agriculture is organized within family spheres and is on a small scale; rural families are to some extent self-sufficient (Bryceson and Fonseca, 2006). The problem is that people usually are unaware of specific techniques and knowledge to increase productivity (Green, 1986). The agricultural productivity therefore is closely related to the issue of poverty (Misselhorn, 2005). However, poverty is not taken as a separate cause of hunger, since many authors treat hunger and poverty as a single issue: they represent different sides of the same coin (Misselhorn, 2005; Sanchez et al., 2005; Sanchez and Swaminatha, 2005). Other factors that contributed to hunger (and relate to productivity too) are a variety of different infectious diseases (Sanchez et al., 2005). Bryceson and Fonseca (2006) mention HIV/AIDS specifically as an important cause. In rural areas, AIDS is putting a heavy burden on the local (family tied) workforce. With just a very thin labor force in operation, it is
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difficult to keep harvests at a constant output level, let alone increase them (Bryceson and Fonseca, 2006). Next to this, politics is an important aspect. This factor is a shared name for initiatives which national and local governments have undertaken in order to address the issue, but also includes corruption and kleptocracy. Green (1986) for instance, mentions the tendency to go along with international fads. As a consequence, national-and local policies are introduced or revoked at a pace nobody can adjust to, making the regulatory environment unfavorable for development (Clemens et al., 2007; Misselhorn, 2005). Closely related to politics is the factor of war/conflict. War and conflicts basically knock out the entire production system in the area of impact causing immediate need for food, water and supplies. According to some authors, conflicts can be seen as a direct cause of hunger (Baro and Deubel, 2006). Others take a more cautious approach by naming it a factor that has contributed to the issue (Clover, 2003; Green, 1986). It should be noted that these conflicts do not have to be between nations. Severe civil unrest and ethnical conflicts are just as well likely to emerge within a country or specific region (Green, 1986). Moreover, infrastructure, or better the absence of it, contributes to the issue to some extent. In this sense, infrastructure means the availability of transportation and storage, supply networks and ease of access to remote areas (Sanchez et al., 2005). Additionally, Green (1986) includes the effective use of inputs and production systems. The socioeconomic factors are mainly trends on a national-or global level. One of the main current shifts in rural Africa is that the emphasis on self-sufficiency is being pushed to the background (Bryceson and Fonseca, 2006). Labor markets are equally changing: people choose short term gains in favor of longer term sustainable options (Green 1986). Former selfsufficient families for instance, might rent their land to others in exchange for money or goods, but as a consequence they cannot use the land for farming purposes causing them to
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get into severe food problems (Bryceson and Fonseca, 2006). Finally, the price of food is a major concern (Verdin et al., 2005; Sen, 1981). Food prices are often too high for ordinary people and are therefore unable to buy food. This in turn is closely related to other issues such as poverty (Misselhorn, 2005) and low agricultural productivity (e.g. Sanchez and Swaminathan, 2005). Lastly, natural disasters can cause hunger. Baro and Deubel (2006) argue that there is a causal relationship between droughts in certain areas and the emergence of hunger in that particular area. Verdin et al. (2006), Misselhorn (2005) and Green (1986) see natural disasters only as a contributing factor to the issue, since they cannot be considered structural and are manageable to some extent. In addition, natural disasters can be linked to global climate change. The frequency with which natural disasters occur increases, as is their severity and impact (van Aalst, 2006). This links the issue of hunger to global climate change and extreme weather conditions that follow as a consequence (van Aalst, 2006). As a conclusion it can be said that there is no clear answer yet as to what the main cause of hunger is. It is likely that all the factors mentioned by the scholars to some degree contribute to the issue. Therefore, most authors present multiple reasons for the existence of hunger.
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A possible weak point of the existing literature is that almost all authors share a similar background: they were raised and educated in the developed Western world. Science, as most people know it, is something developed and shaped mainly by Western cultures (Ogunniyi, 2007). However, the particular way of Western scientific thinking may not be appropriate in all situations: another perspective taken on the same phenomena might generate different outcomes (Ogunniyi, 2007). Regarding the issue of hunger, it is important to realize that this literature overview represents a Western vision on the issue and therefore might not be entirely complete. For instance, Holt-Gimnez and Patel (2009), state that hunger is a distribution problem caused by capitalism. Another possible problem might be that some authors (e.g. Baro and Deubel, 2006) presuppose causality. This can be problematic in the case of conflicts as the cause of hunger. Causality implies a temporal order: the cause must take place before the effect does (Hak, 2010). So in this case: conflicts lead to hunger. One can however, argue for a reversed relationship: hunger leads to conflicts. Additionally, most other authors that used a quantitative study only uncovered a statistical relationship. Most authors see all the causes as contributing to the issue to some extent, instead of trying to identify one single cause.
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Responsibility attribution
Interests
All three societal spheres have a certain interest in resolving the issue of hunger. On national level, it is in the interest of national governments to protect their people from hunger as hunger reduces labor productivity (WFP, 2011c), can cause conflicts and unrest (Messer et al., 1998), leads to migration, and reduces the population, (international) trade and global economic competitiveness. On a global level it is in the interest of other governments as well to prevent and stop hunger in the world as it impacts the global economy and political stability. The main interest that firms have for solving the issue is reputation and connected to this, profits or prevention of losses. Taking social responsibility leads to a better reputation for the firm and indirectly to financial value (Fombrun and van Riel, 2004; Fombrun and Gardberg, 2000). The creation of future markets for the firms products (Newell and Frynas, 2007) is also of interest to firms. This is closely related to the idea that Africa represents a huge potential market, called the bottom of the pyramid principle (Prahalad and Hammond, 2002). This concept might offer interesting opportunities for businesses, since addressing the issue unleashes a large potential market. Lastly, if hunger is an issue among the employees or potential employees of the company, fighting the issue may help to increase labor productivity. The primary interest of many NGOs in the issue of hunger lies primarily in upheaving the living and health conditions in areas that suffer from this. Another interest of NGOs is to create what Buttel (2000) calls: moral commitment and social activism to such an extent that other actors will pay (more) attention to the issue. NGOs also try to increase attention (campaign) for the often underestimated problem of chronic hunger, as now acute hunger has a much stronger presence in the media and receives more funding (Loewenberg, 2010).
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Responsibility
There is limited information in the literature about the questions who is responsible for the issue hunger. Most authors seem to focus on the causes and solutions of the issue. According
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to Baro and Deubel (2006) it is a responsibility of intergovernmental organizations and states to guarantee human rights, including the right for food. They also mention that more research needs to be done to assigning responsibility for the issue. Bryceson and Fonseca (2006) state that human beings (i.e. civil society) are primarily responsible for the issue. They also suggest, however, that it is more important to identify who is vulnerable and needs protection than to assign responsibilities (ibid). When it comes to responsibilities it is important to notice that hunger is an interface issue between the market and civil society (Van Tulder and van der Zwart, 2006). Currently, there are no rules of the game in place to manage/solve the issue, this is called an institutional void (Van Tulder and Van der Zwart, 2006). This implies that these two stakeholders are the main responsible for solving the issue. The states however, also take considerable responsibility. We will shortly discuss the responsibilities of all three actors. Since food is a private good and not a public good (Investopedia, 2011) the primary responsibility is not held by the national governments or the intergovernmental institutions. However, national governments are empowered by their people and need to act in the interest of their people and take responsibility accordingly. For firms it is important to distinguish between firms that play a major role in causing hunger and thus hold direct responsibility and firms that are not related to the issue and therefore do not hold responsibility. Firms that have caused hunger are for example chemical, oil and mining companies that pollute the environment and make local food production impossible or difficult. Companies of both types take some responsibility (the level of responsibility differs of course per company). As mentioned, civil society can be held responsible for the issue of hunger. NGOs realize that civil society as a whole does not take up responsibility. Therefore, NGOs targeted on combating hunger take up responsibility to only some extent: they realize that other actors
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are responsible too and should be involved as well. The main strategy of these NGOs is to seek cooperation with other actors: equal partnerships and philanthropic partnerships are the most likely options (Van Tulder, 2011). NGOs also tend to partner with other NGOs in order to support each other and share resources when it comes to service delivery and campaigning (Van Tulder and Meijs, 2011).
Primary responsibility issue Primary responsibility issue Primary responsibility issue Primary responsibility issue
As it is difficult to determine the relative importance of each cause for the issue hunger, one cannot just add up the number of times each stakeholder is responsible for a particular cause. A conclusion that we can draw however, is that not only the market and civil society are responsible for hunger as we stated earlier, but that a large role should be played by the state,
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as this actor is (partly) responsible for many of the individual causes of hunger. In looking for a solution, one should therefore involve all three societal spheres.
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Partnerships
The necessity of cooperation
The causes of hunger are manifold and so are the initiatives to fight hunger with preventive measures, tackling the causes of hunger and as relief activities after disaster situations. As the responsibility of world hunger is shared, these activities are often initiated by entities of the different societal spheres which engage in partnerships at global, national and local level (Sanchez, 2005). Cooperation on all three levels, such as through cross-sector partnerships (Googins and Rochlin, 2000), is necessary to solve such complex issues as world hunger (Sachs, 2008). Not only are partnerships needed because the responsibilities cannot be clearly attributed to one societal sphere, but also does no sector have sufficient resources and capabilities to resolve such complex issues as hunger (Googins and Rochlin, 2000; Sachs, 2008). Partnering can moreover be seen as necessity to overcome the three forms of failure (government failure, civil society failure, and market failure) which occur with unilateral approaches to tackling development challenges such as hunger (Van Tulder and van der Zwart, 2006). Therefore finding ways to complement each other in competencies is crucial, as is the necessity to clearly divide the roles and tasks (van Tulder, 2011 forthcoming). While governments have already been active for some time in its cooperation with the market and civil society sectors, corporations have only started to form partnerships with NGOs recently and are now searching for effective ways to cooperate (Googins and Rochlin, 2000). This progress in partnerships was also confirmed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, where he stated that "The summit represents a major leap forward in the development of partnerships, with the UN, governments, business and civil society coming together to increase the pool of resources to tackle global problems on a global scale" (UNDP, 2002). Yet governments, firms and NGOs
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can be active or rather reactive in their approach to partnering with other actors (Van Tulder, 2011 forthcoming). Platforms such as the United Nations and the World Economic Forum (WEF) can be seen as important to discuss and partner up for taking action in solving this global issue. Both platforms have a global impact and draw considerable attention. As the WEF states, it aims at bringing together all the different types of major stakeholders in global society to discuss global issues and come up with ways of solving problems (Pigman, 2006).
(See WFP, 2011a) WEF- BAACH (WEF, 2011a) FAO-AAHM (AAHM, 2011)
Local organizations
FAO-1 Billion Hungry (Website, 2011) Action Against Hunger (Action Against Hunger, 2011) The Hunger Project (THP, 2011)
Institutional donors
NGOs such as Oxfam International, Caritas etc. Initiative by the FAO, supported also by the WFP Private donors, foundations
Various governments
UNDP
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A small selection of the many partnerships with initiatives against hunger in Africa is displayed in Table 5. Global initiatives of the WEF related to the issue of hunger include a New Vision for Agriculture Initiative, which is led by the Consumer Industries Community of the WEF (WEF, 2011b). 17 global companies of the WEF are engaged and provide strategic leadership and championship of the initiative (WEF, 2011b). As for the efforts of the national initiative in Kenya, the Business Alliance Against Chronic Hunger (BAACH) is a public-private partnership managed by the WEF and the first private-sector-led alliance focusing on hunger reduction and sustainable food production in Africa (WEF, 2011a). The partnerships displayed in Table 5 however vary in their partnering activities and the extent to which they actively incorporate partners. Whereas the BAACH is directly aimed at finding business-led solutions to the issue together with the corporate partners (WEF, 2011a), Action Against Hunger only receives a small percentage (1.1 percent in 2010) of their funding from corporate partners (Action Against Hunger, 2010). Also do the partnership activities differ on a global, national or regional level, which also impacts the nature of the partnership. The WFP is globally organized and has global partners on this level; however, initiatives on national or local level are supported by local partners. The contributions of the WFP are also divided to serve several programs. The majority goes to Protracted Relief and Recovery Operations and emergencies (WFP, 2011b). Initiatives as the BAACH focus only on tackling hunger in a region of Kenya (WEF, 2011a). Moreover are there three different partnership rationales, bipartite (Public-Private Partnership), bipartite (for profit/ non-profit partnerships), and tripartite partnerships which include all three actors (Van Tulder and Van der Zwart, 2006). As one can see in Table 5, the latter is most occurring which is typical for an interface issue as hunger occurring in an institutional void (Van Tulder and Van der Zwart, 2006).
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Effectiveness
Global initiatives to end hunger can be traced back to FAOs Freedom from Hunger Campaign in 1960 (Gupta, 2003), and nowadays there exist many partnerships and initiatives to tackle the issue of hunger. This integrated and cooperative approach is also what many see as necessary in tackling the issue of hunger in Africa (Baro and Deubel, 2006). The consecutive question is however whether they are effective in ending hunger in Africa. To address this question, one can look at preconditions for success of NGO-business partnerships as they have been identified by van Tulder (2011 forthcoming). First and foremost the analysis, vision and ambition regarding the issue must be shared (Van Tulder, 2011 forthcoming). The problem is that different causes, their causality and their respective impact on the issue of hunger are disputed and prevent a unified and standardized approach by the different partnering entities (Global Issues, 2010). Therefore, the precise analysis of the issue is not necessarily shared by all stakeholders involved. The partnering entities do share the vision of eradicating extreme hunger in the world and have formulated or recognized the MDGs. As for the shared ambition, the positions between the different actors in all three spheres are divided and largely depend on the context and locality of the implementation of an initiative. For example firms can have the incentive to engage in a partnership because they are (partly) responsible for some of the causes of hunger, because they want to build relationships with governments or actors in civil society, or in some cases also recognize the opportunities at the bottom of the pyramid and the connected growth opportunities (Van Tulder, 2008). Governments and civil society however do not necessarily share these ambitions. The fact that the analysis and ambitions are shared only partly, impacts the effectiveness of partnerships negatively (Van Tulder, 2011). This is however inherent to a complex issue as hunger and effective partnerships are still possible when the partners realize the necessity to complement each other effectively.
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Complementarity and the attribution of roles within a partnership is another element contributing to the effectiveness of a partnership. According to the A New Vision for Agriculture of the WEF (2011b), this attribution should be mainly based on the experience and skills of the respective sphere. Also the FAO selects partners based on fit and complementarity, specifically laying out the areas and principles of partnering with the organization (FAO, 2000b). In order to do so however, it is necessary that all three spheres work together to address such an interface issue as hunger, as otherwise one sector needs to substitute the roles of the lacking one (Selsky and Parker, 2005) and is less effective.
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Leadership
The discussion on partnerships and their initiatives aimed at solving the issue of hunger does not only involve the topic of partnerships and platforms such as the World Summit where potential and existing partners meet. It also includes the topic of leadership, as leadership is closely connected to human development (Safty et al., 2003). Effective leaders have the ability to look beyond national or corporate interests at the larger picture of human development. This also counts for corporate leaders who not only look at their business models but at the global picture (ibid). Yet, in tackling the issue of hunger, important people from all three societal spheres, have taken leadership in bringing attention to the issue and partnering up with entities from the other spheres. As an example one can look at Peter Bakker (market), Bob Geldof (civil society), and Kofi Annan (state) who all have taken a leading and constructive role in the issue of hunger, however in different ways. Their role can be analysed in terms of their background, their efforts in tackling the issue of hunger, and their leadership style (see Table 6).
Kofi Annan State Degrees in economics, international affairs and management. Various roles in UN UN Secretary-General Initiated reforms within UN Brought attention to development of Africa Set up Kofi Annan Foundation to promote food and nutrition security. Founder of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa Transformational as UN Secretary-General Visionary and connecting when related to the issue
Peter Bakker Market Business school Worked in market sphere CEO of TNT
Bob Geldof Civil society No formal education Difficult youth Singer in Rock band
Initiatives
UN Ambassador Against Hunger Initiator partnership TNT and World Food Programme Advocate of partnerships between private sector and humanitarian world
Founder Band Aid Organizer Live Aid and Live 8 concerts Other initiatives against hunger
Leadership style
Motto
Transformational within his role as CEO of TNT Steward leadership for sustainable initiatives Sure, we can!
Sources: (Bass (1998); BoardEx (2011); Dubrin et al. (2006); Financial Times (1985); Kofi Annan Foundation (2011); Leader Values (2011); Mirvis et al. (2006); TNT (2011); United Nations (2011); Westley (1991); Westley and Mintzberg (1989); World Food Programme (2011d))
In addition, the literature clearly shows that cooperation between societal spheres is highly important to advance in the fight against hunger (Googins and Rochlin, 2000; Sachs, 2008). In practice however, parties often focus on their own interest and thus end up with suboptimal solutions, a so called prisoners dilemma (Van Tulder, 2011). Connecting the different societal spheres and different stakeholders in the issue, could lead to improved cooperation between them and to reaching optimal solutions. In order for this to happen, connecting leaders need to establish the links between the different spheres and stimulate their collective search for better solutions. In addition, transparency may be needed to stimulate trust and display the real intentions of others.
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Closely connected to both transformational and connecting leadership is collective leadership. The Collective Leadership Institute (2011) defines this leadership style as follows: Collective Leadership for Sustainability is the capacity of a group of leaders to deliver their contribution to a more sustainable future through assuming joint and flexible leadership in service of the common good. At the core of collective leadership is the human capacity to dialogue and transform differences into progress. It enables the transcendence of self-centered views, a prerequisite for successfully addressing the challenges of globalization and sustainability. This leadership style thus focuses on both cooperation and taking a perspective beyond ones own interest on the one hand and transformation on the other hand and could therefore be of great importance for solving the issue hunger. Other leadership styles, such as responsible leadership and visionary leadership, can of course also play a role in solving hunger. As both structural change and intense cooperation are currently so important, we consider transformational, connecting and collective leadership as the main priorities to focus on. These types are important to use in all three societal spheres.
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situation of collective efforts to solve the issue. As the aim is structural change on a mediumto long-term, a proactive approach by a transformational leader is necessary. An individual or an organization of one sphere could take on this role of transformational leadership and the other two spheres should consequently support and follow the initiative. Only in a partnership with all three spheres the optimal progress can be made, therefore there is also an important role for collective and connecting leaders to bring together key people from the three spheres and create a shared analysis, vision and ambition. It should however be noted, that within the partnerships complementarity and division of tasks is important for the success and effectiveness of a cooperation, though structural rigidity needs to be prevented. The crucial milestone in a few years will be whether or not individuals or organizations have been able to form partnerships to initiate structural changes to the global system currently allowing an institutional void for the issue of hunger.
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Limitations
This paper tried to address the issue of hunger by looking at Africa and the current efforts that exist to solve the issue. However, this research has some limitations. First of all, we only looked at the preconditions in organizational and procedural terms for creating solutions (e.g. types of leadership and partnerships). The content of these solutions such as technological innovations (e.g. genetically modified food and agricultural output enhancing techniques) have been left out of the analysis. This might, however, be an interesting option and could really contribute to fighting hunger. Second, it proved hard (if not impossible) to quantify any of the causes in terms of the most important cause of hunger. Future research should focus on this and try to uncover one or two most influential factors that contribute to the issue. Another option might be, given the disputed causes of hunger in the current literature, to study regions or countries and their context to identify unique causes that lead to hunger. Because the causes are unclear, the responsibility attribution is difficult. Finally, leadership is very context specific. Many factors influence the effectiveness of leadership. Therefore it is difficult to come up with clear and universal recommendations regarding this. One should always consider the context when selecting a leadership style, since different styles may be effective in different contexts.
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