The importance of collaboration to scale and sustain impact on the ground

No single company, government, NGO, or organisation can solve the complex issues around responsible production and sourcing of agricultural and forestry commodities alone. Whether deep-rooted environmental issues, human rights at risk, or increasing impacts of climate change, multiple stakeholders are involved, often across borders and with different priorities to balance.

Facilitating engagement between different stakeholders who may not normally engage in substantive dialogue with each other often comes down to helping them find common ground and mutual areas of interest in complex settings. Collaboration enables joint actions to scale impact and gives all stakeholders the sense of belonging to something larger than themselves, which is important for programmes to achieve longevity.

Through our work on the ground in agricultural production landscapes, Proforest has facilitated a wide range of collaborative processes. And while the specific approach to collaboration needs to be adapted to the local context and stakeholders, the underlying principles remain the same.

Firstly, build on existing work. Whether we’re working in collaboration with companies in Mexico, or with government departments in Côte d’Ivoire, it’s important to first take stock of what is already happening there, who the key stakeholders are and to recognise their priorities, then you can work on a strategy to bring everyone together in pursuit of common objectives. When we started our landscape work in Peru, funded by the International Climate Initiative, we spent six months assessing what was already in place, what the governance structures were and how our work could add additional value to something that was already there, with trusted and effective governance. We identified a landscape in the Peruvian Amazon that had most of the elements of a cohesive landscape programme, and where there was alignment between the public and private sectors in support of that programme, at national and regional level. By building on existing action, we knew we could bring synergies and accelerate positive change through our concerted action with partners and authorities.

Secondly, collaboration is a living process in constant evolution. We have to be ready to adapt quickly, as challenges of collaborating include aligning different stakeholders with varying priorities, agendas, and timelines, and dealing with changes in government, company personnel, and policies over time. In Africa and Latin America, we have had to adopt an adaptative management approach after each election cycle and company strategy change, to keep the multistakeholder groups united by a common, evolving, vision. We constantly must re-engage, update KPIs and keep the institutional memory of what each programme is trying to achieve, even if the participants change.