News/Events

WDI Publishing recently released a new case study on the evolution of a global cross sector partnership between Walmart and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The case explores the successes, challenges, and lessons learned in the 15-year collaboration between the two organizations.

“Walmart and USAID: The Evolution of a Global Cross-Sector Partnership,” focuses on partnerships that sought to engage smallholder farmers in the developing world, and highlights examples from Honduras, Guatemala, Rwanda and Bangladesh. It explores the ways in which these collaborations came about, how they were supported by the partners, and the level of success achieved as measured by Walmart, the Walmart Foundation, and USAID.

The case also identified lessons learned for the future of the Walmart/USAID collaboration, and insights that may apply to the development of partnerships for development more broadly.

A team of graduate student from the Ross School of Business and the Ford School of Public Policy assisted with researching and writing the case with faculty leadership from WDI Senior Fellow Ted London, and management support from WDI Scaling Impact Research Manager Colm Fay.

“This work explores how Walmart and USAID have sought to build a global alliance based on mutual value creation,” London said. “A key goal of the project was to develop a case that can help the partners themselves understand what had happened over the past 15 years and will help catalyze strategic thinking for both organizations.”
The case is designed for use in graduate, undergraduate, and executive education programs taught in university business schools. It can be used within disciplines, such as public policy, public administration, public health, development studies, natural resources and other domains interested in understanding the opportunities and challenges of building cross-sector collaboration that generates both social impact and business outcomes. The case could also be used by independent training organizations, or for training programs within multinational corporations or public sector organizations, especially those focused on positive global social impact or corporate social responsibility.

The case is available free of charge from WDI Publishing here.

The WDI-run blog site NextBillion also wrote about the case and its development. Read more here.