International Trade Centre (ITC) (May 2015-April 2016) ITC s support for the New Partnership for Africa s Development (NEPAD)

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1 International Trade Centre (ITC) (May 2015-April 2016) ITC s support for the New Partnership for Africa s Development (NEPAD) The focus of The International Trade Centre s (ITC) work corresponds to a great extent to the New Partnerships for Africa s Development (NEPAD) strategy and interventions on: 1. Creating an enabling environment for regional co-operation; 2. Fostering partnerships between the private sector, infrastructure agencies and regional economic communities and; 3. Creating regional opportunities for sharing knowledge and networking. 4. Advocating for support of Africa s development ITC s contribution to Africa's development within the framework of NEPAD goals is guided by the need to accelerate the continent's achievement of the MDGs. In addition, the two organisations share common goals on partnerships and a range of crosscutting issues including gender and the environment. The synergies between ITC and NEPAD relate to improving enterprise competitiveness so that companies can respond to market demands while ensuring that the business environment enhances the competitiveness of companies and countries alike. At the beginning of 2014, a three-year programme to promote intra - regional trade in Eastern Africa was launched to contribute to inclusive and sustainable trade-led growth in Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia by improving the competitiveness of SME producers and strengthening trade and investment support institutions (TSIs) in the three countries. During the period May 2015 to April 2016, the project would reach its final phase before closing in June The project is promoting SME participation in regional and international value chains in selected agro-food sectors namely mangoes and chillies for Kenya, mangoes, spices and honey for Tanzania and honey again for Zambia. The first year of implementation saw business contacts and networks strengthened, value chains analysed and sector strategies developed. Promising signs are already visible in Kenya, where village-based entrepreneurs who received start-up capital worth US$300 have been contracted by Mace Foods, a domestically registered company with ties to Germany, to source chillies from local farmers. The following is a summary of concrete results achieved: Kenya SMEs have registered good productivity gains as a result of ITC/Bosch training on Lean Production resulting in increased profitability. Five additional companies are now being assisted until June

2 Kenya mango exporters signed business transactions for exports of more than US$ 1.1 million and participation organised by ITC at the Gulfood show from 8-12 February 2015 in Dubai, UAE. Three trade support institutions were trained. Enhanced trade information services provided to the Kenya Export Promotion Council (EPC) and the Kenya National Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Tanzania 15 enterprises have met potential buyers and transacted business through ITC support at Gulfood in Dubai and Apimondia in Harare & South Korea. At least 30 enterprises have been enabled to become export-ready through ITC training activities focusing on Quality & Standards, Supply Chain Management and Packaging, Honey Value Addition. The Service portfolio of TanTrade, Small Industries Development Organisation (SIDO), Tanzania Honey Council (THC) and Association of Mango Growers (AMAGRO) were strengthened in organizing trade promotion events and training SMEs on Market Development, contractual issues of export trade and Market Intelligence. A Packaging Service Centre established at SIDO to service packaging needs of SMEs. Zambia Up to 4 enterprises have met potential buyers and transacted business through ITC support at Apimondia South Korea and connected to Parodi Group, a global distributor of honey based in Argentina. 6 enterprises have been enabled to become export-ready through ITC training activities focusing on Quality & Standards, Supply Chain Management and Branding. Branding support for Zambian honey to increase value-addition was provided to 9 SMEs. Twenty Six (26) ISO packaging standards and one Technical Specification were approved as Zambian Standards by the Zambian Bureau of Standards (ZABS) as a result of ITC technical assistance and facilitating networking of ZABS and Kenya. Four Trade Support Institutions were supported in the areas of Corporate Strategy, Trade Information, advocacy issues and organising participation of SMEs at international trade events. Support by ITC was given to the development of sustainable South-South business relationships in the cotton sector through policy-level work with African regional economic commissions in western, central, and eastern Africa, equipping them to support the implementation of their respective cotton-to-clothing supply chain strategies. Three national cotton-to-clothing strategies have been developed in Cameroon, Zimbabwe and Côte d Ivoire. Throughout the period May 2015 to April 2016, the Supporting Indian Trade and Investment for Africa (SITA) project would have passed in its first year of implementation. This 2

3 innovative project aims to help realize some of the enormous untapped potential for more trade and investment in a more diversified range of goods and services across the Indian Ocean. Targeted interventions are helping African countries to diversify their currently commodityheavy export basket to India and third markets as well. In this context, the SITA project seeks to address the challenges that five East African countries Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania face in using export diversification and growth to drive sustainable development. A series of multi-stakeholder conferences involving public and private sector participants from the African countries as well as India have been held to identify priority sectors in each country that will benefit from support under the project. During the period under review, ITC partnered with other UN agencies under one- UN initiative in Rwanda and Tanzania in developing programmes for trade development. Within this framework, ITC is supporting Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SMEs) and Trade support Institutions (TSIs) in the areas of ISO quality management and food safety systems, trade intelligence services, facilitating access to finance and strengthening the public-private dialogue in trade negations within the context of WTO and regional trade agreements. The Boosting the International Competitiveness of SME Clusters project in Rwanda is aimed at supporting the growth of SMEs in 6 export-oriented clusters of Pineapples, Bananas, Vegetables, Honey, Flour (from cereals and cassava), and Nuts. The project identified gaps along the export value chains and addressed these through capacity building measures and TSI strengthening in the areas of trade intelligence, trade finance, quality compliance and standards, packaging, marketing, supply chain management and youth and women entrepreneurship development. This is an ongoing work So far, 60 loan/business advisers of Business Development Fund (BDF) have been trained in improved access to finance, and 80 SMEs and 5 Ministry staff trained in standards and packaging for market access. New business linkages have been promoted under the project where 3 companies dealing with cultivation and processing of pineapples have been linked to the markets in Netherlands and Switzerland, and 4 Rwandan SMEs were supported to participant at the Dubai World of Perishables Expo resulting business offer to supply fresh bananas, pineapples and avocado to buyers from Dubai. Additionally, 3 Rwandan SMEs were supported to obtain awareness and experience through a study tour done to Tanzania and Ghana for manufacturers of packaging on obtaining bar-codes and establish a packaging centre in Rwanda. The project is supported by the Rwanda One UN as well as other bilateral donors to ITC. ITC has also been working jointly with the One-UN team in Lesotho toward commercialization of rural agriculture for the benefit of the rural people. This has enabled these smallholder farmers to supply the local/regional retailers with Fresh Fruits and Vegetables. This has also enabled the private sector to contribute to rural development. 3

4 In the case of Tanzania, the focus of the project is on the development of backward linkages in horticulture to the tourism industry. In Malawi, improved Trade Statistics and Information Systems is an EU funded project ( ), aimed at enabling policy-makers and the private sector to make better trade related decisions by improving the accessibility and relevance of the services of the National Statistical Office of Malawi (NSO) and the Malawi Investment and Trade Centre (MITC) to efficiently collect, process, package and disseminate, reliable and up-to date trade related intelligence. Two new web portals have been developed, NSO Trade Map Malawi and the MITC Trade Information Portal, which provide the users with statistics on trade flows and information on national and international business opportunities respectively. 9 technical trainings were conducted for the staff from the 2 institutions, along with staff from Malawi Revenue Authority and the Ministry of Industry and Trade. The trainings in statistical analysis using MS Excel, SAS and other ITC market analysis tools, along with the production of trade information products such as export commodity profiles. In Comoros, the EIF-funded project to increase the competitiveness of the three main export products of The Comoros including cloves, vanilla and ylang-ylang focuses of organizing the producers and processors of the said products in cooperatives that are reliable suppliers of niche products to the global markets. Within months of the launch of a new registry of cooperatives was created at the Ministry of Justice. Five new cooperatives have been created including one in Grand Comoros focusing on vanilla, two cooperatives, with an average membership of 70 members, on each island of Ajouan and Moheli focusing on Ylang-ylang and cloves. The cooperatives not only provide farmers with a stronger negotiating position in trade but also serve to popularise use of more efficient technologies, identified through the project, for the processing of the goods. The Sector Competitiveness and Export Diversification project (SCEDP) has been supporting the development of The Gambia's cashew, sesame and groundnut sectors. The project budget is 2.36 USD million funded by the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) trust fund. It was launched in June 2012 and ends in March At policy level, the project has supported the development of The Gambia s quality assurance framework in the 3 sectors through the publication of the first 10 national standards. At institutional level, the capacity of five organisations has been strengthened. Three sector associations have benefitted from interventions that improved their operations the management of Farmer Field Schools. The operations of the Gambia Food Safety and Quality Authority (FSQA) have been supported and sesame seed multiplication programme was financed at the National Agricultural Research Institute. At enterprise level, the project has trained eight enterprises in quality and food safety and enabled four enterprises to become ready for HACCP certification. Three enterprises have been provided packaging equipment and advisory. At farmer level, the Farmer Field Schools have trained over 400 farmers in each sector in farming and postharvest methods to improve output. There are also four EIF projects ongoing in West Africa: in Bénin (pineapple, cashew nut), Senegal (mango), Chad (gum Arabic) and Guinea Conakry (mango). All the four projects 4

5 cover value chain development and market access. In February 2016, a delegation of Senegalese ITC spent a lot of resources during the period May 2015 to April 2016 on project development in the field of trade related technical assistance that are fully aligned to NEPAD priorities and the Agenda Regional projects have been developed for ECOWAS, UEMOA and ECOWAS while those for ECCAS, IOC are in the pipeline. At the level of the African Union, ITC is providing technical assistance for the establishment of the Trade Observatory and the African Business Council. Country development programmes are being designed for Sierra Leone, Niger, Mali and Togo. A country project for Madagascar is completed and efforts are under way for resource mobilization. UNDAF projects for Zimbabwe (where an EU-funded SPS project is under way), Mozambique, Uganda and Ethiopia are being designed. ITC is also helping African countries to categorize measures in line with the Bali Trade Facilitation Agreement and has conducted some surveys to assess non-tariff barriers. In Kenya and Uganda, tea growers are being assisted to address global warming through improved output. ITC also played an active role in MC10 in Nairobi where a one-day event was organized to promote women entrepreneurship. ITC also played a key contribution to the WTO accession of Liberia. In all ITC projects, be it those which are under implementation or are being designed, a lot of emphasis is placed sustainability and inclusiveness. Women and youth empowerment and entrepreneurship are also centre stage. ITC Resources Africa s share of resources