Abstract This study presents a perspective on how partnerships engaging private-sector actors could support greenhouse gas mitigation in African ruminant livestock value chains. Through using value chain governance theory and illustrative examples, we highlight potential contributions of these partnerships rather than demonstrate realised mitigation effectiveness. Using illustrative examples from beef cattle grazing, intensive dairy, and mohair fibre from several countries (South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda), we described partnership design. Across these illustrative examples, partnerships involving agribusiness companies and livestock producers linked low-emission practices to markets through quality-based milk pricing, village milk-collection hubs, the development of certification standards for mohair, and pilot programs in rangeland restoration and manure recycling. In some examples, public and nonprofit organisations helped finance embedded services (notably, grazing-plan support and milk-quality testing for price premiums) using buyer contributions, public budgets, or donor projects, including where livestock producers could not readily capture mitigation benefits.
Komarek et al. (Mon,) studied this question.