Post Crisis Project & Supply Management: Towards Supply Chain Sustainability & Security in Global South Co-operative Agricultural Projects

Agricultural and rural projects directly affect the welfare of over half of the world’s population, which is highlighted as a crucial component of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (Griggs et al., 2013; UN, 2015). Such projects are highly susceptible to environmental, social, and economic challenges, especially in the Global South, where these projects and associated communities are more vulnerable to crises such as natural disasters, pandemics, and socio-economic instabilities (Dong et al., 2021), especially when facing the additional challenges caused by the recent pandemic (Wang et al., 2020). Sustainable and responsible management for complex projects are becoming increasingly crucial for future project profession (Tite et al., 2021). This research is a timely response to current global challenges. Following a systematic literature review, this research will apply a multiple-case study approach to conduct an in-depth empirical investigation of the sustainability of contemporary co-operative agricultural projects in the Global South, with robust evidence from multiple sources in China (via interview, accompanied observation, and document analysis). It will address knowledge gaps in project and supply management in sustainable agriculture contexts by adopting an interdisciplinary approach to investigate project organising and crisis management, and will form a solid foundation for future confirmatory and scaling-up research (e.g., mass survey and/or modelling). This is especially critical at a point where the Covid-19 pandemic has caused global disruptions and social and economic emergency (Wang et al., 2020; Barber et al., 2021). The research would also contribute to the call (e.g., Shepherd et al., 2018) to better facilitate agriculture-related sustainability and innovation and further investigation incorporating agile project management and organisational models.

Therefore, this research aims to conduct a novel and robust examination of post-crisis project and supply management, towards developing a framework of supply chain sustainability and security in global south co-operative agricultural projects, as closely aligned to UN SDGs 1, 2, 10, 12, and 15.