INVESTING IN TREES AND LANDSCAPE ... - PROFOR

BOX 3.5. PARTNERSHIP THAT SUPPORTS THE PEOPLE-PLANET-PROFIT CONCEPT
In 2002 the Novella Partnership was founded to support a program of scaling up the production of
Allanblackia oil in Ghana, Tanzania, and Nigeria, and—at the same time—reducing poverty and
promoting sustainable enterprise and biodiversity conservation in Africa. The vision of this partnership
is to build a sustainable (environmental, economic, and social) supply chain that will contribute to the
development of Allanblackia businesses in Africa.
Novella is an international public-private partnership with a wide range of actors. Unilever is the largest
investor; it buys the harvest in preprocessed crude oil for refining in Rotterdam and has received a food
clearance for Allanblackia oil in spreads from the European Food Safety Authority, which is the entry
ticket into the food market. Having such a key market player as Unilever in the partnership is critical to
encourage increased supply of Allanblackia seeds.
The World Agroforestry Centre is leading the scientific work on the domestication of Allanblackia to boost
harvest levels into commercial viability. The National Forestry Research Institutes in Ghana and Tanzania
are supporting this work by coordinating field activities and linking to other government departments.
Technoserve provides business advice and access to both markets and capital to business people in
developing countries. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) works to facilitate the
integration of forest landscape restoration principles in the different models for increased production of
Allanblackia; IUCN also supports the development of a market differentiation system for Allanblackia oil
in collaboration with the Union for Ethical Biotrade.
Novel International is the African partnership member; it consists of the companies that are developing
the supply chain in the three main countries of focus: Ghana, Tanzania, and Nigeria. In 2008 Unilever
took a step back from the management of the national-level supply chain, handing it over to three local
companies in Africa: Novel Ghana, Novel Tanzania, and Novel Nigeria. The reasoning behind this decision
was to strengthen decision making, ownership, and implementation at the national level and support the
vision of Allanblackia as a product from Africa for the benefit of Africans. Unilever would rather facilitate
the development of the supply chain than own it, which increases the potential for a sustainable supply
chain as other buyers enter the market.
However, investment in trees and landscape restoration requires a closer partnership than
conventional passive investment, so some overlap of vision and goals is appropriate and desirable.
The process calls for parties to reveal their visions, then agree on goals that are consistent with
the visions. For instance, the local enterprise’s goals may be to develop a plantation and harvest
trees for sustainable profits, while restoring the local ecosystem and maintaining social cohesion.
The vision is a healthy and prosperous community living in a rich natural environment. Meanwhile,
the investor’s goals are to make a positive return on capital while using that capital to promote
environmental goals without social conflict. The common ground is to:
• Make a profit and maintain a growing balance sheet,
• Enhance the forest landscape, and
• Build social capital.
88 INVESTING IN TREES AND LANDSCAPE RESTORATION IN AFRICA