Blog: Have we lost the Dutch diamond?

Years of development assistance have yielded lots of scepsis about the effectiveness of many approaches. Yet in the Netherlands we are convinced of one model that has undisputably delivered tangible and sustainable results. This approach,  baptized as ‘The Dutch Diamond’ and promoted with a fervor usually reserved for private sector campaigns, has obtained global fame.

By its very name, one can already imagine what it looks like: collaborations between the public and private sector, civil society and knowledge institutes. But how such collaborations work effectively together, delivering on public good goals such as food security or biodiversity, often remains mystical to many. And what happens to the Dutch Diamond if one or two key actors are excluded from participation? Let’s explore what makes the Dutch Diamond truly shine, and why it risks fading.

The origin of the Dutch Diamond

The idea of the ‘Dutch Diamond’ has its origin in the traditional Dutch mode of cooperation called ‘Landbouwschap’ established after World War II, where producers and workers in the agricultural sector, together with the government, farmers’ organizations, agricultural banks, agro-industrial firms, and knowledge institutes joined forced to create favorable conditions for agricultural growth and rural development.

The approach was loosely inspired by Micheal Porter’s Diamond model used for establishing a comparative advantage in international trade. The Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation, Mrs. Agnes van Ardenne,  introduced the idea in 2004 as a pillar for future international cooperation programs in the fields of food, water and agriculture. At its core, the diamond approach requires open sharing of information between all parties involved in order to reduce risks and strengthen trust between them.

The key ingredients for success and failure

The Dutch Diamond approach has supported public good goals such as food security and climate-smart agriculture, both in the Netherlands and internationally. It has been applied successfully to improve the access and use of improved seeds, to strengthen value chains of horticulture and flower exports, and to reduce the post-harvest losses of perishable products.

But the approach has been far less effective in areas where deep inequalities between partners persist and participation remains rather unbalanced. In the ongoing reforms of Dutch agriculture, the dialogue between farmers, agro-industry, nature organizations and the government is seriously disrupted due to failures in the governance regime. The Dutch Diamond works well to support better internal organization of agriculture between equal parties, but meets major constraints when structural transformations are needed of more complex agri-food systems between unequal parties.

Have we lost the Dutch Diamond?

In recent years, Dutch development cooperation shifted toward the integration of aid and trade programs. This was particularly successful in the food and agricultural sector that already had a strong export orientation and could build on a long tradition of public-private cooperation and intensive interactions with civic and knowledge organizations.

Gradually however, the trade component became more important and a growing amount of subsidies was directly channeled through business parties. A large part of the available budget was used to support activities related to international commodity trade, whereas only a minor share focused on food production for internal markets.

Several evaluations have raised concerns about the implications of the ‘Aid and Trade’ agenda for local producers and have registered a limited impact on food and nutrition goals. Most efforts were concentrated on well-established value chains in middle-income countries that only generated limited additionality. Meanwhile, cuts in public funding for NGOs and knowledge institutes have reduced the participation by stakeholders, transforming the Dutch Diamond from plurality to little more than business-to-business cooperation.

Outlook

The original concept of the ‘Dutch Diamond’ was based on a well-established idea of horizontal cooperation and engagement in collective action by a wide number of different partners. Today, however, practice is shifting towards more linear ‘business-to-business’ (B2B) relationships that only pursue rather straightforward entrepreneurial goals.

As a result, the synergy between diverse actors that sometimes even pursue opposing interests is easily lost. Most programs focus on the promotion of sector interests, without considering wider public goals. For the Dutch Diamond to shine again, guarantees are needed for broad participation of non-profit driven actors and Southern must be placed in the driver’s seat for the selection and execution of joint agri-food development programs. Only then can the Dutch Diamond continue to deliver on its promise of sustainable, inclusive food systems.