Co-management of intellectual resources: the role of power and discourses in the governance of the Kilimo Hai organic label

Abstract Organic labels transmit information along a value chain that a product complies to a certain standard. Their management requires a diversity of stakeholders and some organic labels, like Kilimo Hai (KH) in East Africa, are the product of a collaboration between the public and private sector. Though this co-management model may present advantages in terms of sector coordination and recognition, it is also vulnerable to power asymmetries and to maladjustments. In fact, the popularity of the KH label remains low despite 15 years of existence, and its associated Participatory Guarantee System (PGS) differs from the mainstream definition of PGS as decentralised and horizontal certification schemes. In this paper, we analyse the creation process of the KH label and of its PGS in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Drawing on the politicised IAD framework proposed by Clement (2010), we discuss how political, economic and discursive factors can shape the co-management of an organic label. We describe two negotiation arenas, by exploring data from semi-structured interviews and related literature. We show that the creation of both the KH label and its PGS has been influenced by power asymmetries, political interests and panacea and blueprint discourses. These factors induced shortcomings in domestic organic value chains and partly explain the low popularity of the KH label, illustrating how intellectual resources such as organic labels are vulnerable to under-exploitation due to mismanagement. A deeper understanding of co-management processes may participate in identifying and preventing these issues.