Amazing Economic Justice ‘Other Discovery’ No 1: Daniele Giovannucci

Daniele Giovannucci, whose work is ranked among the top 1% of the more than 100,000 professional authors listed by the social science network, is the first individual to be identified as an “Economic Justice Trade ‘Other Discovery’ ”.

Daniele describes his passion as “the interface between human development and food”. And his profession as “the achievement of balance between local empowerment and global trade.”

In positioning his professional passion he states, “It is true that applying sound business methods that enable competitive participation in trade fosters development more effectively than any form of aid. Yet it is also necessary to advance local institutions and community capacity in order to help the poor to fulfill basic human needs and to achieve sustainability at the most critical level: locally”.

After growing up in rural Italy and studying in the US, Daniele achieved exceptional success as an international business entrepreneur in the 80s. In the early 90s, he came to realise the profound impact of hunger and starvation in the world. As a volunteer working in Latin America, Daniele began a life-long quest of researching the sustainability issues of developing nations.

After creating positive new supply chain models integrating: economic extension services and farmers, technological innovation and family conscious processing work, and certification and export, he was appointed as a senior consultant to the World Bank.  Leading the bank’s efforts to integrate more sustainable business models into its strategic framework for rural development, Daniele refined his focus to “fostering a more realistic form of development that responds to the realities of highly competitive markets, but is also truly relevant for the poorest of the poor and their most basic needs”.

His most recent achievements include

• He is co-founder of the Committee on Sustainability Assessment (COSA), formed by a global consortium of 20 institutions. COSA has pioneered innovative measures for the ecological and social standards such as Organics and Fair Trade.
• As a key driver of the United Nations Environment Programme’s “The Green Economy Report”, Daniele coordinates the world’s leading practitioners and institutions to develop policy and investment strategies for sustainability in agriculture.
• Since conducting the first extensive research on sustainability of the world’s most important cash crop: coffee — including the publications: “The State of Sustainable Coffee” & “Sustainable Coffee Survey: North America” — he has received several awards for his pioneering work and is often cited as the most widely published author in this field.
• Daniele’s work on markets and agro-enterprise has been translated into 5 languages and his newest book “Geographic Indications: A guide to global best practices” will be released by the U.N. International Trade Centre in mid 2009.
• He continues his work around the world as adviser to international agencies, governments and corporations on sustainability, rural development strategies, and trade competitiveness. He currently leads several global projects and teaches courses focused on sustainability initiatives and standards.

Daniele has a preference for straightforward common sense approaches to sustainability, development and trade. His writings on these topics offer unique insights to what he thinks and why he thinks this way.

On Understanding and Engaging Producer Communities

“The real needs and real limitations of rural communities are rarely addressed by mainstream development efforts. We don’t listen enough to the poor and instead assume that agrochemical inputs, business development or perhaps an export operation will address community needs by providing more money. Development literature is full of cases where such simplistic approaches fail or do not survive the closing of aid projects. In some case they do more harm than good.

The problem lies in the attempt to overlay business principles without understanding the bigger picture of not only the actual needs of local communities and their cultures, but also the likely impact on them. This requires getting beyond having meetings with a few government leaders to actually talking with local producers, enterprises and communities and understanding the domestic markets.

By now experience should have taught us to better access community needs and the realities of local capacity and to consider the impact on both food and environmental security. This is the basis of any truly effective strategy. It’s not necessarily a complex process; it can be as simple as asking the right questions and being open to conversations that allow space for local concerns and for local aspirations to emerge”.

In essence, Daniele promotes a sustainability strategy we share and endorse…to develop our innate capacity to create our solutions together.

“Poverty is not natural. It is man-made and can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice”. (Nelson Mandela from DG’s Website)

On Agricultural Trade

“Rather than immediately developing export oriented agricultural business, some poor rural communities might be better served by more humble and more sensible approaches: developing their participation in local and regional markets as a step prior to export, or integrating eco friendly production systems and encouraging various methods of diversification.”

“We need to work together to develop more interactive supply chains and locally relevant institutions. Supply chains work best for development when there is a reasonable distribution of power…NGOs, farmer groups, trade associations or dedicated government bodies can help to take guardianships of this power distribution.”

“The combination of strong local institutions and efficient, balanced supply chains can serve to foster local sustainability while also building global competitiveness.”

“It is vital to combine development strategies with market-responsive approaches in order to integrate smaller producers effectively.”

“Producer groups need to be structured so as to be viable in the long run both in terms of serving their constituents and being agile in the market.”

“A strong and resilient community provides the fundamental foundation of sustainable development. Such a community tends to emphasize shared responsibility and participatory decision making that involves women, elders and youth.”

“Farming looks mighty easy when your plough is a pencil and you’re a thousand miles from the cornfield.” (Dwight D. Eisenhower from DG’s Website)

On Hunger

“The work of ending hunger is not about feeding people.  People suffer chronic hunger and severe poverty because of social and political conditions that systematically deny them the ability to end their own hunger. Poor people (especially women) lack a say in decisions that affect their lives.

Charity and conventional aid hasn’t worked and won’t work because conventional thinking treats hungry people as the problem and not the solution. They have creativity and skills, and need the opportunity of an environment in which people are empowered to build lives of self-reliance.”

“Only when people can secure their own most basic needs such as food, can they attend to commerce, trade and their environment” (DG)

These snippits of over 30 years of Daniele Giovannucci’s work offer only a ‘thin slice’ of his mammoth contribution to the developed and developing world. To me, he is truly an “Amazing Economic Justice ‘Other Discovery’ ”!!!

Endnote: Please share YOUR suggestions for individual or collective “Amazing Fair Trade ‘Other-Discoveries’”

Thanks also to the team at Fairfood for the ‘heads-up’ on DG!