Context
The dairy sector in LMICs offers huge opportunities to contribute to healthy diets, gainful employment for youth and smallholders and sustaining the agro-ecological resource base. The Netherlands has implemented numerous dairy projects in the past years, some being more successful than others. What have we learned from these experiences? And how can we contribute even better to dairy sector transformation that generates sustainable food systems?
The coalition
Ambition of the coalition is to learn about the interventions and innovations that have worked and the bottlenecks that hinder sector transformation considering the different physical, economic, social and political context in various countries. And to set an agenda for sustainable dairy development in emerging economies. This should lead to improving the effectiveness of Dutch funded programmes and the quality of new initiatives.
The Dutch Diamond stakeholders involved are implementing substantial programmes with partners in the respective countries, considering the local context and looking for local business solutions. Interventions are tailor-made for e.g. smallholders, medium-scale farms or land-scarce farms.
In 2019, the coalition stakeholders organised two events, in Nairobi, Kenya (13 August) and in Veenendaal, the Netherlands (27 November) in which experiences were shared. An extensive background paper offered an overview of insights at technical, organisational, institutional and policy level and was the steppingstone for a position paper.