2SCALE Thematic Papers Not By Technology and Money Alone | Page 37

15. The limits of functional
capacity strengthening:
Reflections on an
unsuccessful
agribusiness venture
By Jodicaël Ahoueya,
trainer-mentor, Benin
Key themes: PO development, PO-firm relationship
Maize-Benin PPP Summary
The partnership is led
by SOCIA, a company
that processes maize
into grits for the Brewery
SOBEBRA; SOCIA seeks
a reliable supply of
traceable quality maize
through organised POs. This story differs from the rest as it shows how success was
not achieved despite a lot of partnership-building efforts
between maize farmers, a processing company and Benin’s
largest brewery. Still the story is interesting for drawing
lessons for the future. A main conclusion is the importance
of commitment of the lead firm to practising inclusive
business and to involving local-level partners in decision-
making to ensure their engagement, and processes that
seek the best conditions for all partners.
There are cases where the efforts of trainers and coaches
do not succeed in improving the functioning of a partnership
or in achieving tangible results. This was the case in the
white maize partnership in Benin. Coming now to the end
of three years on the project, we who were responsible for
strengthening functional (or soft skills) capacity, will attempt
to analyse in this account the reasons for our lack of suc-
cess, to draw some lessons for the future. I would like to
note however, that our reflections are based on incomplete
information and therefore should only be considered as hy-
potheses.
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The basic facts
The initial business model was to market white maize pro-
duced by smallholder farmers in Benin through their com-
munal organisations; and then to process this white maize
into coarse maize meal grits for use by SOBEBRA, the
country’s largest brewery. SOCIA , the intermediate proces-
sing company, took the first initiative to ask for support from
2SCALE. The main challenge confronted by the company
was to get an adequate supply of white maize that could be
traced through a coding system, to satisfy the requirements
of its client, the SOBEBRA brewery. The national federation