Transformational Partnerships

The Transatlantic Experts Group, co-chaired by former U.S. Congressman Jim Kolbe and former French Development Agency Chief Executive Officer Jean-Michel Severino and backed by over 40 international experts, was established to contribute to an ongoing dialogue on development partnerships and food security. The Experts Group convened in July 2011 and set out to identify and propose transformational partnerships that help drive positive change and lead to scalable programs, based on a shared vision among public and private sector actors, viewed through the lens of food security in sub-Saharan Africa. The Group’s main focus is on understanding the unique characteristics of transformational partnerships in food security in Africa so that they can be scaled up and replicated across the continent.


In pursuit of the GMF Transatlantic Experts Group’s objectives, a core team of the Experts Group undertook a fact-finding mission to Ethiopia and Tanzania to both meet with stakeholders from business, civil society, donor field offices, and local and regional government bodies and to identify the challenges and opportunities to forging transformational partnerships. Transatlantic development cooperation as well as cooperation among development partners, African governments, and business actors was a central focus of the interviews. 


In addition to the information gathered in those conversations, this report also reflects the rich input of the wider group of experts who reviewed the fact-finding mission report and provided insights and comments during meetings in December 2011 in Brussels and Washington, as well as the insights and suggestions drawn from a valuable workshop held in Dar es Salaam in February 2012. The cases examined in this report are naturally focused on Tanzania and Ethiopia. As such, this report may be most immediately applicable for transformational partnerships in East Africa. Despite the differences inherent from region to region, country to country, and indeed within countries, it is also hoped that the findings of this report may nonetheless be useful for strengthening partnerships across Africa.