The significance of private standards and associated local level initiatives in agri-food value chains are increasingly recognised. However whilst issues related to compliance and impact at the smallholder or worker level have frequently been analysed, the governance implications in terms of how private standards affect national level institutions, public, private and non-governmental, have had less attention. This article applies an extended value chain framework for critical analysis of Private Standards Initiatives (PSIs) in agrifood chains, drawing on primary research on PSIs operating in Kenyan horticulture (Horticulture Ethical Business Initiative and KenyaGAP). The paper explores the legislative, executive and judicial aspects of governance in these southern PSIs highlighting how different stakeholders shape debates and act with agency. It is argued that governance is exercised ‘beyond the vertical’ in that one can identify wider horizontal processes of governance, including how the scope of key debates is constructed (especially in legislative governance) but analysis of executive governance emphasises the dominant role of the lead buyers
Global value chain and global production network analyses have largely focused on dominance of Northern retailers over suppliers in the global South. The expansion of retailers within the global South sourcing from and supplying consumer end-markets within their own geographic regions is reconfiguring value chain dynamics. This paper draws on GVC and GPN approaches and the concepts of multi-polar governance to analyse changing dynamics of global and regional retail supply networks. Drawing on a case study of supermarket expansion within South and East Africa, it analyses how ‘waves of diffusion’ by global and regional supermarkets provide new opportunities for ‘strategic diversification’ by some horticultural producers and workers. It examines the implications for economic and social upgrading and downgrading, finding mixed outcomes. Strategic diversification provides opportunities for economic and social upgrading by more capable suppliers and skilled workers, but economic downgrading pressures persist and some are excluded from both global and regional value chains.
Cholera epidemics have a recorded history in the eastern Africa region dating to 1836. Cholera is now endemic in the Lake Victoria basin, a region with one of the poorest and fastest growing populations in the world. Analyses of precipitation, temperatures, and hydrological characteristics of selected stations in the Lake Victoria basin show that cholera epidemics are closely associated with El Niño years. Similarly, sustained temperatures high above normal (T(max)) in two consecutive seasons, followed by a slight cooling in the second season, trigger an outbreak of a cholera epidemic. The health and socioeconomic systems that the lake basin communities rely upon are not robust enough to cope with cholera outbreaks, thus rendering them vulnerable to the impact of climate variability and change. Collectively, this report argues that communities living around the Lake Victoria basin are vulnerable to climate-induced cholera that is aggravated by the low socioeconomic status and lack of an adequate health care system. In assessing the communities' adaptive capacity, the report concludes that persistent levels of poverty have made these communities vulnerable to cholera epidemics.
This article examines a particular international supply chain, the Kenya-UK cut flower supply chain, and looks at the implications of such globalised systems of production for women workers. Using womens' own accounts of their working lives as presented in recent research data and in campaigning activities within Kenya, it confronts the realities facing women workers. With the proliferation of codes of conduct in the cut flower industry, the importance of participatory social auditing (PSA) in uncovering workers' grievances is highlighted. These accounts have been significant in bringing together different stakeholders, including UK supermarkets, and the subsequent establishment of the Horticulture Ethical Business Initiative (HEBI). The importance of participatory methodology is highlighted in the context of both the research exercise and the auditing procedures recommended by HEBI. The establishment of the HEBI using a PSA methodology emphasizes the importance of a local, multi-stakeholder approach to code implementation. It is concluded that although there are signs of some improvements in labour conditions on some farms, serious problems remain which are inherent in the downward pressures exerted in buyer controlled supply chains.
Endemic malaria in most of the hot and humid African climates is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality. In the last twenty or so years the incidence of malaria has been aggravated by the resurgence of highland malaria epidemics which hitherto had been rare. A close association between malaria epidemics and climate variability has been reported but not universally accepted. Similarly, the relationship between climate variability, intensity of disease mortality and morbidity coupled with socio-economic factors has been mooted. Analyses of past climate (temperature and precipitation), hydrological and health data , and socio-economics status of communities from the East African highlands confirm the link between climate variability and the incidence and severity of malaria epidemics. The communities in the highlands that have had less exposure to malaria are more vulnerable than their counterparts in the lowlands due to lack of clinical immunity. However, the vulnerability of human health to climate variability is influenced by the coping and adaptive capacities of an individual or community. Surveys conducted among three communities in the East African highlands reveal that the interplay of poverty and other socio-economic variables have intensified the vulnerability of these communities to the impacts of malaria.
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