NGOs and governments in developing countries are interested in finding out how inclusive businesses can be used to promote inclusive development. Dutch multinationals and policy makers are also showing increasing interest on how inclusive businesses can become successful. The INCLUDE-WOTRO research consortium ‘Inclusive business strategies in Africa’, which is broadly based in academia, the private sector and NGOs, is an action research programme that aspires to find concrete results on success factors for inclusive businesses in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania. The project will assess how Dutch multinationals can achieve inclusiveness with the involvement of non-market actors such as NGOs, national governments and local stakeholders.
The project will generate more comprehensive indicators of inclusive business development at all functional levels in a multinational company and will validate these indicators through action research, sharing business dilemmas during executive training modules and an overview of barriers to and triggers for change in the organization of value chains. Confidential company and NGO profiles will be developed to help track the implementation of the strategies and to analyze employee perceptions. Importantly, best practices and critical success factors will be identified.
Knowledge sharing will mainly be organized by executive training and through Dutch and local employer organizations. A link with the still-to-be-created knowledge platform on PPPs in water, food and private-sector development is expected and will include policy briefs and mid-term and final events that will be open to a wide audience.