Empowerment For Democracy Through Multistakeholder Partnerships

This paper examines how multistakeholder partnerships generate empowerment among marginalised beneficiaries in global supply chains. Drawing on survey data from 129 cocoa farmers in a Fair-Trade project spanning Europe and West Africa, we analyse how different forms of participation relate to empowerment in the family and cooperative levels. Our findings challenge the common assumption that direct beneficiary involvement in partnerships necessarily enhances empowerment. Beneficiaries’ familiarity with the project partners (used as a proxy for direct engagement) is not associated with higher empowerment and in some cases, it is negatively related. In contrast, beneficiaries who perceive that their cooperative is influential in the partnership feel more empowered both in their families and cooperatives. These patterns suggest that empowerment is mediated through intermediary organisations rather than direct engagement with external partners. A closer examination of one cooperative show that cultural norms and centralised governance can further constrain empowerment, even when beneficiaries are highly exposed to all actors of the partnership. Overall, this study highlights the central role of intermediaries in fostering democratic participation, challenging models of empowerment based on beneficiary inclusion alone.