Scaling service delivery in a failed state: cocoa smallholders, Farmer Field Schools, persistent bureaucrats and institutional work in Côte d’Ivoire

Sander Muilerman,Sietze Vellema

doi:10.1080/14735903.2016.1246274

Sander Muilerman, Sietze Vellema

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/14735903.2016.1246274

Copy DOI

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe increased use of sustainability standards in the international trade in cocoa challenges companies to find effective modes of service delivery to large numbers of small-scale farmers. A case study of the Sustainable Tree Crops Program targeting the small-scale cocoa producers in Côte d’Ivoire supplying international commodity markets shifts attention from mechanisms of private governance to the embedding of service delivery in the institutional dynamics of the state. It demonstrates that, despite a recent history of violent conflict and civil unrest, the introduced Farmer Field Schools programme achieved a surprising scale in terms of numbers and geographical spread. The analysis of this outcome combines political science and anthropological studies of effective and developmental elements in the state with the interest in institutional work found in organization science. The scaling of a new form of service delivery is explained by the skilful practices of institutional work by managers of a public–private partnership. They have been professionally associated with the sector for a long time and had the capacity to embed new forms of service delivery in persistent pockets of bureaucratic effectiveness in a failed state.

Highlights

At the beginning of the new millennium, the cocoa sector in Côte d’Ivoire, its cocoa organizations and the country itself could not have had a worse reputation
For explaining the observed transformation and scaling of service delivery to small-scale cocoa farmers in Côte d’Ivoire, this paper investigates the sequence of activities set in motion by the career professionals managing the Sustainable Tree Crops Programme (STCP), a regional private partnership (PPP) programme in West Africa (2001–2011)
The case study central to this paper documents and analyses the sequence of events and organizational actions contributing to the scaling of Farmer Field Schools (FFS) in Côte d’Ivoire

Summary

Introduction

At the beginning of the new millennium, the cocoa sector in Côte d’Ivoire, its cocoa organizations and the country itself could not have had a worse reputation. Côte d’Ivoire was generally considered, under the rule of President Gbagbo, to be a failed state with clearly predatory traits This context seems not very conducive for endeavours to implement sustainability standards for cocoa and the related new forms of service delivery to large numbers of small-scale cocoa farmers. Alignment of the PPP with the Ivorian extension system and the mobilization of unprecedented national and international private sector support appear as crucial preconditions for this outcome. This reflects a puzzling outcome when seen in the light of the discussion on failed states: what generated this scalable form of service delivery in a context that appears unconducive?

Methods

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion