Collaborative governance for the sustainable development goals

The advent of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals has refocused global attention on the roles of business and other nonstate actors in achieving global goals. Often, business involvement takes the form of collaborations with the more traditional actors—governments and non‐governmental organizations. Although such partnerships for development have been seen before, the scale and expectations are new. This paper explores how and why these cross‐sector collaborations are evolving, and what steps can or should be taken to ensure that partnerships create public and private value. The arguments are illustrated with reference to cases of market‐driven partnerships for agriculture in Southeast Asia that are intended to engage marginalized smallholder farmers in global value chains in agriculture. The aims of these cross‐sector collaborations coincide with several targets of the Sustainable Development Goals such as poverty alleviation, decreasing environmental impact, and achieving food security. This is a hard case for mechanisms intended to protect public interests, given that the target beneficiaries (low‐income smallholder farmers and the environment) are unable to speak effectively for themselves. We find that structures and processes to align interests in ways that protect the public interest are both necessary and feasible, though not easy to achieve

Field evaluation of selected formulations of Trichoderma species as seed treatment to control damping-off of cowpea caused by Macrophomina phaseolina

The experiment was carried out between 1997 and 1998 at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, Nigeria to test the efficacy of biological seed treatment of cowpea against Macrophomina phaseolina infection in the field. Trichoderma sp., T. koningii Oudem (IMI 361600) and T. harzianum Rifai (IMI 361601) were selected from soil dilutions and tested in vitro for their antagonistic behaviour against cowpea pathogen M. phaseolina before use in the field. The in vitro tests in dixenic cultures, showed all three Trichoderma species growing fast and stopping the growth of the pathogen by the third day of pairing. Two varieties IT86D-2120, and Ife Brown were tested and two formulations of each Trichoderma species (mycelial suspension and suspension + starch) were also tested. The analysis of variance showed that there were significant differences between stands from the two trials and varieties. Treatment effect was also significant. The variety IT86D-2120 had significantly better stands in both trials. The highest plant stand of 53.8% at 7 days after planting (DAP), from the first trial, was from IT86D-2120 seeds treated with T. koningii + starch, which decreased to 49.3% by 21 DAP due to post emergence damping off. In the second trial, IT86D-2120 seeds treated in T. harzianum suspension had percentage stand of 55% at 7 DAP, which reduced to 45.8% at 21 DAP.Keywords: Trichoderma harzianum, T. koningii; biological control, field trial, Macrophomina phaseolin

The end of secrecy

Reprinted in Bernard I. Finel & Kristen M. Lord, eds. (2000). Power and conflict in the age of transparency. New York: St. Martin’s Press.</p

Rising Asian powers and changing global governance

10.1111/j.1468-2486.2010.00995.xInternational Studies Review13124-33ISRV