Dr. Michael Otto, Dr. J. Christian Jacobs and Michael R. Neumann establish a founder alliance. SUSTAINEO will foster more sustainability and partnership in development cooperation
Worldwide, millions of families of smallholder farmers growing cotton, cocoa and coffee will be supported in permanently improving their living conditions / Essential targets are sustainable production as well as secured demands
Hamburg, April 19, 2011 –The three entrepreneurs and founders Dr. Michael Otto, chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Aid by Trade Foundation, Dr. J. Christian Jacobs, chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Jacobs Foundation, and Michael R. Neumann, chairman of the Board of Trustees of the foundation Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung, have established a founder alliance to draw more public attention to the issues of development cooperation. Thereby, the activities of their respective foundations shall be given more weight. SUSTAINEO, the newly established alliance, wants to foster millions of smallholder producers in sustainably improving their living conditions and those of their families. In the founders’ opinion, this is an important contribution to the stabilisation of rural societies in developing countries.
Through SUSTAINEO the three initiators intend to create more publicity for the concerns of development cooperation and to increase the effectiveness of their own programmes. Additionally, better cooperation and strengthened political coordination of their comprehensive global activities shall be achieved. From now on, the three partners will cooperate more closely and intensify their cooperation with governmental and non-governmental partners in the development, the implementation and the analysis of their projects.
The founders are convinced that it is absolutely necessary to enhance collaboration via alliances and partnerships and to actively promote a stronger networking between the public and private sector. For this reason, the alliance is particularly ambitious to build a close cooperation with the German and international development cooperation at a strategic-political level; joint dialogue and targeted initiatives will improve the effectiveness of public and private means. SUSTAINEO is based on the believe that the best way to enhance development processes in rural areas is to strive for a stronger linkage between entrepreneurial business know-how and established development approaches, in order to enable smallholder farmers to improve their income through their own commercial activities.
Population growth, surface erosion and other use of cultivated areas make the supply of agricultural products one of the major global challenges. At the same time, the production of coffee, cotton and cocoa is of outstanding economic and social importance to many developing countries. In the tropical countries, approx. a quarter of a billion people rely on the production of these commodities, which primarily come from poor rural areas and small-scale farmers. In many places, farming cooperatives and organisations are lacking access to efficient marketing channels and formal financing formats. A professionalization of the entrepreneurial activities of smallholder farmers hence is a great opportunity to increase their typically very low income. The alliance feels committed to enable smallholder farmers to become the supporting pillar of their societies and, thus, contribute to the economic development of these countries. “The demand for sustainable products is going to increase. By pooling our strengths in form of an alliance, we want to achieve that especially smallholder farmers contribute to the required supply volumes and benefit from an increasing demand by means of more productivity and better access to markets”, states Dr. Michael Otto.
The objective pursued by the alliance is the long-term improvement of the living conditions of people in the production countries. The approach based on sustainability strives at protecting natural resources, improving incomes, ensuring agricultural production as well as local and regional development by investing in education and training. In order to build up the fundamental competencies and the knowledge required for a sustainable economic development, the foundations already invest in specific measures designed to improve the access to high-quality education for children, youth and smallholder farmers.
“In the project work of our foundations, we encounter comparable social and economic framework conditions and challenges when it comes to the implementation and achievement of our objectives. In order to be able to enhance efficient and sustainable development cooperation we want to raise our projects to new quality levels”, says Michael R. Neumann. “To reach our objectives, it is substantial to provide access to education to the children of smallholder farmers and to allow the communities to recognise education as necessary prerequisite for economic advance. I hope to contribute to this development by establishing SUSTAINEO”, states Dr. J. Christian Jacobs.
SUSTAINEO is pooling valuable competencies and experiences and offers itself as a strong partner to politics. Both with their companies and their foundations, Otto, Jacobs and Neumann have been active along the value chains of cotton, cocoa and coffee for many years. Their foundation projects specifically support sustainable production and reach hundreds of thousands of smallholder farmers and their families in more than 20 countries in the tropical belt. Therefore, the foundations already contribute to poverty reduction and environmental protection in developing countries. They develop solutions that can serve as models and provide a basis for a broad-based improvement of the situation of smallholder farmers all over the world. SUSTAINEO strives at scaling up this success and stands for the central idea of an equal partnership between market participants and small-scale producers.
For further information: Jan von Enden
Hanns R. Neumann Stiftung
040 / 80 81 12 446
