Competing and Learning in Global Value Chains - Firms’ Experiences in the Case of Uganda. A study of five export sub-sectors with reference to trade between Uganda and Europe

Executive Summary and Chapter 5: Presentation and discussion of main finding

Case studies of lead firm governance systems in the context commercialization of smallholder agriculture in Uganda

[INTRODUCTION] The study is set in the context of: (a) overall weak farmer-buyer relations in most parts of Uganda’s agro-sector which affect the development prospects of small holder farmers (SHFs), and (b) a growing interest by the private and public sector, including the Government of Uganda (GOU) and development agencies in the contribution of value chain (VC) analysis and support interventions to economic development in the country. This study analyzes the governance of domestic value chains (DVCs) in the agricultural sector in Uganda. It focuses at exploring how agricultural produce buyers set up, coordinate and monitor - that is govern - the DVCs with their supplying farmers. Particularly how buyers govern the latter’s activities and performance and thus the division of labour in the DVC. Governance in this context constitutes for instance: (i) setting the requirements for farmers in terms of product quantity, quality and delivery, or production processes, (ii) monitoring compliance, and (iii) assisting farmers to meet the set requirements. This study focuses on such governance systems of various buyers which operate a DVC with SHFs. The buyers are called lead firms (LFs) of the DVC. The research was concerned with: the rationale and functioning of the business relation between the LF and SHFs, related benefits and costs as well as lessons-learnt, farmers’ upgrading as well as opportunities and challenges which will have to be addressed by the VC actors or call for assistance from for instance GOU and respective support institutions

Neoliberalism and the revival of agricultural cooperatives: The case of the coffee sector in Uganda

Agricultural cooperatives have seen a comeback in sub‐Saharan Africa. After the collapse of many weakly performing monopolist organizations during the 1980s and 1990s, strengthened cooperatives have emerged since the 2000s. Scholarly knowledge about the state–cooperative relations in which this “revival” takes place remains poor. Based on new evidence from Uganda's coffee sector, this paper discusses the political economy of Africa's cooperative revival. The authors argue that donors' and African governments' renewed support is framed in largely apolitical terms, which obscures the contested political and economic nature of the revival. In the context of neoliberal restructuring processes, state and non‐state institutional support to democratic economic organizations with substantial redistributional agendas remains insufficient. The political–economic context in Uganda—and potentially elsewhere in Africa—contributes to poor terms of trade for agricultural cooperatives while maintaining significant state control over some cooperative activities to protect the status quo interests of big capital and state elites. These conditions are unlikely to produce a conflict‐free, substantial, and sustained revival of cooperatives, which the new promoters of cooperatives suggest is under way