Distributive Governance and Persistent Inequalities in the Cashew Value Chain of Côte d’Ivoire

This paper illuminates the role of the state in global value chain (GVC) governance, specifically the processes of distributive governance through which state agencies redistribute value towards certain GVC actors. Through a case study of the cashew value chain in Côte d’Ivoire, we analyze how the state’s regulatory authority, the Cotton and Cashew Council (CCA), seeks to move value up the chain to promote fair producer prices and a domestic processing industry. To do so, it must address structural inequalities in the GVC dominated by exporters who supply Asian nut processing factories with cashew nuts produced by Ivorian smallholder farmers. The paper examines Ivorian state policies and regulatory actions that aim to restructure the cashew value chain to address these nested challenges. The analysis focuses on the 2013 cashew sector reform, emphasizing the price setting mechanism, CCA’s primary regulatory tool for establishing a fair producer price. Our study reveals that the CCA’s distributive governance goals, although initially aimed at improving farming incomes and livelihoods, have become increasingly compromised by mounting state bias towards domestic nut processors. Rather than capturing more value in the cashew value chain, farmers are subsidizing the expansion of the processing industry. The paper contributes to the GVC literature by demonstrating that the state plays a distinctive and necessary role in distributive governance but that its effectiveness in redistributing value is constrained by its limited institutional capacity and its policy choices.