Building and Evaluating Organizational Linkages in Food Security Initiatives: A Preliminary Analysis of International Collaboration in Cuba

Ilan Alleson

Food insecurity and hunger are not restricted to developing countries. They are rapidly growing occurrences in Canada as well (McIntyre, 2003; Tarasuk, 2001). The causes of food insecurity are numerous and stem from (but are not limited to) conditions of health, shelter, income (Dachner & Tarasuk, 2002), trade deregulation, economic policies, the take-over of natural resources by corporations (Menzes, 2001), aquifer depletion, soil erosion, unpredictable weather patterns (White, 1994), desertification and poor food distribution (Lappe et al, 1998). The role of nonprofit organizations in redressing these problems has been well documented (Fairholm, 1998; Thrupp, 1996). However, food insecurity is a multifaceted social problem that requires extensive collaboration to be effectively addressed (UNDP, 1996).

Concentrating on the unique experience of the Cuban food security movement, this research focuses primarily on how NGOs concerned with food security collaborate with other organizations to share effective programs and expertise. Designed in cooperation with two NGOs and drawing from approximately 20 semi-structured interviews with project coordinators from 11 organizations this paper examines how Cuban NGOs, governmental organizations and foreign NGOs create and evaluate collaborative linkages. Informed by scholarship on organizational behavior (Hannan & Freeman, 1989) and food security (Cruz & Sanchez, 2003; Funes et al, 2002; Murphy, 1999; Rosset, 2000), four central questions guide this research: 1) How do organizations focused on achieving food security, build collaborative links? 2) How do collaborating organizations perceive and evaluate these linkages? 3) What types of lessons and programs from Cuba are replicable in Canada? And 4) How can interorganizational collaboration between Cuban and foreign organizations be improved?

Food insecurity and hunger are not restricted to developing countries: they are also rapidly growing occurrences in developed ones (McIntyre, 2003; Tarasuk, 2001). Many scholars and organizations involved in food security are looking towards Cuban food production models as a source of strategies that can be used to alleviate food insecurity in developing and developed countries alike. A growing number of foreign organizations also work collaboratively with Cuban counterparts to support local food security initiatives and to learn from the unique experiences in this region. While a number of scholars note the importance of interorganizational collaboration for facilitating knowledge transfers and redressing complex social problems (Evans, 2002; Stein et al, 2001) North-South organizational partnerships frequently face difficulties in achieving these objectives due to imbalances in power. Based on approximately 20 semi-structured interviews with project coordinators from 11 organizations, this paper examines how Cuban NGOs, governmental organizations and foreign NGOs perceive and evaluate their partnerships with one another. The findings indicate that Cuban and foreign organizational partnerships offer unique paradigms for North-South interorganizational collaboration. The paper concludes by examining key indicators that organizational practitioners consider when building and evaluating their partnerships.

Full Paper

Source
Presented at the Social Research in Organic Agriculture Symposium. Guelph, Ontario. January 2005


Author Location and Affiliation
Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, ilan@yorku.ca


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