Corporate influence through the G8 New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition in Africa

In recent times, new partnerships models between governments, business and civil society are increasingly gaining attention. One prominent example is the "New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition" (G8NA), inaugurated at the G8 summit 2012 in the United States.

A new working paper published by Global Policy Forum, Brot für die Welt and MISEREOR, puts a spotlight on how business interests are promoted through the G8NA. To that end, the paper shows how the initiative bundles existing policy initiatives and aligns national policies to corporate interests.

The paper concludes that the approach and objectives of the G8NA are highly problematic. The initiative serves as an enforcing mechanism for corporate driven blueprints for agriculture and sidelines national plans and international standards. It is dominated and tailored towards the interests of big corporate actors and is based on a reductionist approach of agricultural “development”. And lastly, the G8NA is poorly institutionalized and disregards fundamental principles of transparency participation and accountability.

For these reasons, the demand for radical change of this initiative – or in case of inaction its complete stop – is still valid, when the initiative enters its third year.