UVA Darden School and National Partners Announce Cocoalink as Winner of Public-Private Partnership Award

The University of Virginia Darden School of Business Institute for Business in Society, Concordia and the U.S. Department of State Secretary’s Office of Global Partnershipsyesterday announced CocoaLink as a model public-private partnership and winner of the inaugural P3 Impact Award at the 2014 Concordia Summit in New York City.

The partners created the P3 Impact Award to recognize and honor the leading public-private partnerships (P3s) that are improving communities — and the world — in the most impactful ways. CocoaLink, a P3, uses mobile technology to improve cocoa production and the livelihoods of African cocoa farmers.

CocoaLink was highlighted in a special edition of the Darden School’s publication, Ideas to Action, provided at the Concordia Summit. The report features leading practices and actionable insights of CocoaLink and the four other award finalists, and will also be used to develop teaching cases and other materials to share and advance best practices with other public-private partnerships around the world.

The four other award finalists included the African Diaspora Marketplace, Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves, Coca-Cola Company and World Wildlife Fund Global Freshwater Partnership and Wireless Access for Health Initiative. The winner and finalists received international recognition at the Concordia Summit and will be included in a mural commissioned by the U.S. Department of State. As the winner, CocoaLink will receive a full scholarship to attend a week-long Darden Executive Education course.

“We are delighted to partner with Concordia and the U.S. Department of State Secretary’s Office of Global Partnerships to announce CocoaLink as the inaugural P3 Impact Award winner, and to highlight this and other public-private partnerships that are improving our world in innovative and impactful ways,” said Darden Professor Mary Margaret Frank, an academic director of the Darden Institute for Business in Society. “In addition to recognizing the excellence of the winner and finalists, we hope that the P3 Impact Award and the corresponding special edition ‘Ideas to Action Report’ will become vehicles for sharing and advancing best practices.”

“We were humbled and inspired by the example and success of CocoaLink and all of the award finalists. At Concordia, we believe that partnerships move us closer to solving the world’s most intractable problems — and CocoaLink is a perfect example of the innovation, solutions and success that can result from collaborations between the public and private sectors,” said Natalie Pregibon, Director of P3 Intelligence, Concordia’s research division.

“By shedding light on successful partnership models around the world, we hope that this award will invoke others to promote change through partnerships,” said Andrew O’Brien, Special Representative for Global Partnerships at the U.S. Department of State.