PhD defence: THE MAKING OF INCLUSIVE VALUE CHAINS: Insights from service delivery initiatives in Ghana’s cocoa chain

PhD candidate: F (Faustina) Obeng Adomaa. Promotor: dr.ir. SR (Sietze) Vellema. Co-promotor: dr.ir. MA (Maja) Slingerland. External copromotor:Richard Asare.
In recent years, there have been calls for value chains to be inclusive. These calls have led to the development of sustainability programmes and service delivery initiatives in the global cocoa chain through which leading companies deliver support services to smallholder farmers. This thesis examined how inclusiveness emerges in these programmes and initiatives as companies, farmers, intermediaries, and other actors interact. Insights from the thesis indicate that although inclusion is presented as a predefined ethical standpoint, “inclusive value chains” cannot be designed and implemented in specific contexts to achieve intended outcomes. Inclusiveness emerges in the daily interactions among actors and it is highly contingent on context. Material conditions as well as written and unwritten rules in context shape the interactions among actors that configure inclusiveness of value chains. Insights from this opens space to know how to intervene in value chains to foster inclusiveness.

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