annual report 2016 - itc...annual report 2016 5 create income opportunities for refugees and...

TRADE IMPACT FOR GOOD

Annual Report 2016

U N S D G s I T C

II INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTRE

U N S D G s I T C

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ITC is the only international agency fully dedicated to the development of small and medium-sized enterprises. Working with partners to strengthen the competitiveness of SME exporters, we help to build vibrant, sustainable export sectors that provide entrepreneurial opportunities, particularly for women, young people and poor communities.

ANNUAL REPORT 2016 1

Trade impactfor good

2 INTERNATIONAL TRADE CENTRE

Contents

Foreword 4

The Global Goals are ITC’s goals 6

The global context 8

ITC INTERVENTIONS: DOING MORE, BETTER 12

Providing Trade and Market Intelligence 16

Building a Conducive Business Environment 24

Strengthening Trade and Investment Support Institutions 32

Connecting to International Value Chains 38

Promoting and Mainstreaming Inclusive and Green Trade 46

Supporting Regional Economic Integration and South-South links 58

CORPORATE RESULTS 66

Corporate governance 68

Evaluation and performance 70

Financial overview 72

Human resource management 75

Communication and outreach 77

Major ITC events 79

Partnerships 81

APPENDICES 92

APPENDIX I: ITC focus areas and programmes 94

APPENDIX II: ITC technical cooperation by region and focus area 96

APPENDIX III: ITC country and regional projects and programmes by country 103

APPENDIX IV: ITC needs assessment and project design in 2016 by region 110

APPENDIX V: Profile of ITC staff 112

APPENDIX VI: Distribution of assignments by nationality and gender of experts, 2016 113

APPENDIX VII: Schedule of voluntary contributions to the ITC Trust Fund 117


Building peace and sustainable livelihoods

through inclusive tourism in Myanmar

Market power and value addition deliver income

gains for Zambian cotton farmers

40

60

Increased sales for exporters and higher prices for farmers in

Kenya’s avocado sector

Supporting international sourcing and sales for

Tunisia’s textiles and clothing sector

42

62

Alliances for a more competitive

Caribbean coconut industry

Facilitating China-Africa trade and investment for value addition and

job creation

44

64

In partnership with

INVESTING INTRADE PROMOTION GENERATES REVENUE

Quantifying trade and investment support institutions’ impact on trade performance and GDP

Bolstering Zimbabwe’s infrastructure for standards compliance and certification

34 36

ePing: Cooperating to give SMEs real-time information about non-tariff measures

Case studies

Equipping SMEs with the information they need to access markets

20 22

Tackling non-tariff measures at the regional level to improve the

business climate for trade

PROVIDING TRADE AND MARKET INTELLIGENCE

BUILDING A CONDUCIVE BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT

STRENGTHENING TRADE AND INVESTMENT SUPPORT INSTITUTIONS

CONNECTING TO INTERNATIONAL VALUE CHAINS

SUPPORTING REGIONAL ECONOMIC INTEGRATION AND SOUTH-SOUTH LINKS

SheTrades: Empowering women entrepreneurs in international markets

Empowering hat-makers in Haiti through ethical fashion

Using trade to create jobs and build skills for refugees

51 54 56PROMOTING AND MAINSTREAMING INCLUSIVE AND GREEN TRADE

Leveraging WTO commitments to boost

intraregional trade in West Africa

28 30


Foreword

For the trade and development community, 2016 merited that over-quoted Dickensian phrase: ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.’

In the year after the world’s governments adopted the Global Goals for Sustainable Development, international trend lines for poverty, hunger, and child mortality continued their welcome journey downward. The World Trade Organization’s Trade Facilitation Agreement progressed steadily towards entry into force as dozens of countries ratified the accord and started to implement measures to cut trading costs and border delays. In many major economies it was the year in which solar or wind power first became cheaper than electricity generated from fossil fuels, a critical tipping point on the road to curbing climate change in line with the Paris Agreement.

And yet, 2016 saw the open global economy – a key driver of all of these positive trends – come under sustained political attack on a scale unseen in decades. Opposition to open markets drew support from substantial sections of the electorate in several developed economies. Much of this backlash was the product of years of inadequate domestic policies to ensure that the gains from globalization were widely shared. Yet the fact is that if protectionist rhetoric is translated into reality, possibilities for trade-led growth will diminish for developing countries while limiting the gains from specialization and productivity everywhere.

Amid today’s tensions, one thing is clear: inclusive growth, and making trade work for the 99%, is more important than ever, in developed economies and developing ones alike.

The International Trade Centre (ITC) remains committed to these objectives. Bringing countries and communities from the margins to the mainstream of the world economy has been the goal for which we have worked since our founding in 1964. Empowering small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to connect to international value chains is essential to translate trade into equitable increases in income and life opportunities, since they employ the vast majority of the workforce. Especially in least developed countries, small, vulnerable economies and fragile states, inclusive trade will be critical to achieving the broad-based growth and job creation needed to achieve the Global Goals by 2030.

In the current political environment, ITC’s core goal – to enable businesses to make the best possible use of existing levels of market opening – is especially relevant. This report sums up how ITC worked to make trade happen in 2016, delivering close to $50 million of extra-budgetary expenditures on technical assistance, capacity support and innovative analysis despite a complicated funding context. Working together with its partners in the public and private sectors, ITC leveraged each dollar received into $14 in new trade for companies that use ITC tools or are directly involved in ITC projects.

On the analytical front, the second edition of our annual flagship report, the SME Competitiveness Outlook, shed light on how non-tariff measures weigh on the exports of smaller firms and yielded insights about how governments could most effectively help SMEs overcome challenges arising from standards and regulations as well as where the business community could invest for further growth.

In terms of implementation, a dozen case studies from across the six focus areas of our work serve to highlight ITC’s solutions-oriented approaches, be it partnering with governments and regional institutions to improve the business climate for trade or empowering women entrepreneurs to grow their companies and connect to international markets. Three additional ‘ITC Innovates’ stories describe new initiatives that we anticipate will deliver considerable results in the future. One of these, which seeks to harness the power of mobile internet technology to

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create income opportunities for refugees and asylum-seekers, addresses one of the biggest humanitarian challenges of our time. Like many of our more novel recent approaches to solving longstanding problems, the refugee skills initiative emerged from ITC’s Innovation Lab, which has been living up to its objective of fostering a culture of innovation across the organization.

One particular cause for pride in 2016 was the emergence of visible dividends and multipliers from earlier ITC initiatives. For example, SheTrades was launched in 2015; by the end of last year, partner organizations from Nigeria to Finland to Sri Lanka had signed on to its call for action, pledging to connect 600,000 women entrepreneurs to markets – already more than halfway to the original goal of bringing 1 million women to market by 2020.

At the institutional level, ITC is committed to constant self-improvement in order to better serve our clients. This is why, over the past two years, we have been shifting to a programme-based approach to conceptualizing and organizing our interventions. The new approach promises increased managerial effectiveness as well as a more cohesive project portfolio in line with the Global Goals. To this end, ITC’s internal structures have been reorganized to better align institutional reporting lines with our core areas of

work with the goal of further enhancing operational efficiency as we move to implement our ambitious project pipeline. We also continued to make progress towards our target of achieving gender parity at all professional levels. Finally, because delivering for our clients requires resources, we made major efforts in 2016 to increase and diversify our funding sources.

In the face of unexpected reductions in voluntary contributions, we continued to deliver trade impact for good, and drove fundraising efforts that promise to bear fruit in 2017. We hope that within these pages you will recognize the success that we have achieved on the ground, and that you will see continued value in investing in ITC as your partner for inclusive trade and development.

Arancha González Executive Director

1. E-commerce entrepreneurs at the Joint Advisory Group 2016 2. Launch of the SME Competitiveness Outlook 2016 3. Launch of the SheTrades initiative, Nigeria 4. World Export Development Forum 2016, Colombo 5. Award-winners at TPO Network World Conference and Awards 2016, Marrakesh 6. Trade for Sustainable Development Forum 2016, Geneva

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The Global Goals are ITC’s goals

The Global Goals for Sustainable Development represent a universal, global development agenda for all United Nations member states and development actors until 2030. They consist of an integrated, interlinked set of 17 goals supported by 169 targets in economic, social and environmental development dimensions. ITC directly supports 10 Global Goals.

ITC contributes to the Global Goals via its support to small and medium-sized entreprise (SME) international competitiveness for inclusive and sustainable growth through value addition, trade, investment and global partnerships. It has systems in place to monitor results and assists the global community in tracking advances towards achieving the Global Goals. A code of conduct guides ITC interventions.

SME international competitiveness

Small and medium-sized enterprises

Trade and investment support institutions

Policymakers

TRA

DE

-RE

LATE

D N

EE

DS

FOCUS AREASTRADE

Providing trade and market intelligence

Building a conducive business environment

Strengthening trade and investment support institutions

Connecting to international value chains

Promoting and mainstreaming inclusive and green trade

Supporting regional economic integration and South-South links

25% 19% 17% 30%9%

How ITC projects link to individual SDGs


GOAL 1

� Reduce proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty. � Create sound policy frameworks based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive

development strategies.

GOAL 2

� Double productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women. � Provide access to knowledge, markets and opportunities for value addition.

� Ensure sustainable food production systems.

GOAL 4

� Ensure youth and adults have relevant skills for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship.

GOAL 5

� Ensure women’s full and effective participation in business and trade and equal opportunities.

� Support women’s equal rights to economic resources.

� Enhance use of enabling technology to promote the empowerment of women.

GOAL 8

� Achieve higher levels of economic productivity through diversification, technological upgrading and innovation.

� Promote policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation.

� Encourage formalization and growth of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises. � Implement policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture

and products. � Increase Aid for Trade support.

GOAL 9

� Ensure a conducive policy environment for industrial diversification and value addition.

� Increase access of SMEs to financial services and integration into value chains and markets.

GOAL 10

� Achieve income growth of the bottom 40%. � Implement special and differential treatment for developing countries, in particular least

developed countries (LDCs), in accordance with World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements.

GOAL 12

� Achieve sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources. � Support companies in adopting sustainable practices and integrating sustainability information

into their reporting cycles.

GOAL 16

� Support effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels. � Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making. � Ensure participation of developing countries in the institutions of global governance.

GOAL 17

� Ensure a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system under the WTO.

� Support significantly increased exports of developing countries, doubling the LDCs’ share of global exports by 2020.

� Realize timely implementation of duty-free and quota-free market access on a lasting basis for all LDCs.


U N S D G s I T C

World trade growth remains subdued

World trade growth in 2016 remained sluggish. Global exports of goods and services rose 2.3%, well below the 25-year average of 5.6%, and lower even than the 2.9% rate registered the year before (all figures in volume terms). Exports of commercial services continued to outstrip merchandise trade growth, highlighting the increasingly important role services are playing in supporting economic activity.

Global exports of goods and services are projected to increase by 3.5% in 2017, though similar estimates have in recent years been revised downwards in light of disappointing growth in overall economic activity. Global output growth in 2016 remained moderate at 3.1%, down 0.3 percentage points from 2015.

Developed economies saw merchandise export growth fall by more than half in 2016 to 1.0% from 2.2% in 2015. This was due to anaemic growth in the first quarter, partly caused by a sharp drop in import demand from developing countries. Developing countries recovered from a first-quarter decline to post annual merchandise export growth of 1.8%.

Lower-than-expected GDP growth in major developing countries such as China and Brazil, coupled with weak growth in import demand in developed countries, were major factors behind the slow trade growth. Alongside these cyclical factors, the relationship between trade growth and GDP growth has continued to weaken. Since the 1980s, trade has typically grown 1.5 times faster than output, a ratio that climbed to about 2-to-1 during the 1990s as the disaggregation of manufacturing production across countries and regions picked up speed. Since the financial crisis of 2008–09, however, world trade and GDP have grown at about the same rate, and 2016 was the first time in 15 years that trade grew more slowly than GDP. Economists

have suggested that part of the convergence is structural: the result of shortening value chains as manufacturers can increasingly source components at home instead of importing them.

Furthermore, prospects that future trade growth will be supported by major new trade initiatives have dimmed, as strident anti-trade rhetoric weighs on policy in some leading developed economies. Even long-established trade agreements and customs unions may face adverse pressures in the years to come. In this political context, enabling developing countries to make more effective use of the international market access they enjoy is one key to using trade as an engine for development. Standards and regulations play a critical role here.

Making trade a force for good: The role of standards and regulations

Much of the criticism of trade stems from a misguided belief that economic globalization is a zero-sum game. However, it is clear that how the gains from trade are distributed among and within countries matters, and that leaders in government and business in many countries have neglected these distributional consequences. Policymakers must now tackle these issues head-on. While much of the necessary response falls within the realm of domestic social policy, there is considerable scope to make trade more of a force for good, one that enhances economic wellbeing while protecting consumers; a force that is economically empowering, socially responsible and environmentally sustainable.

Standards and regulations play a key role both in making trade happen in practice and in making it a force for good. Without common standards, nuts made in one factory would almost certainly fail to fit into bolts made in another

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The global context


and one computer would be unable to communicate with another. Governments adopt regulations to protect consumer safety and animal and plant health, so that children’s car seats do not collapse under pressure and to reduce the risk that imported fruit might unwittingly carry diseases or pests that would decimate a country’s native plant species. Businesses introduce standards into their value chains to ensure product quality and protect their brand reputations. Increasingly, companies and non-profit organizations alike are developing non-mandatory standards linked to a wide and growing array of social and environmental objectives. Such ‘voluntary sustainability standards’ originated primarily in the industrialized world, but the trend is changing, with new measures frequently headquartered in developing countries such as Brazil, Colombia, India, Kenya and South Africa.

The 2016 edition of ITC’s annual flagship research report, the SME Competitiveness Outlook, focused on the role standards and regulations play in promoting these different varieties of what ITC terms ‘good trade.’

Titled Meeting the Standard for Trade, it placed special emphasis on examining how SMEs seeking to trade across borders are affected – positively and negatively – by these standards and regulations.

Because SMEs account for the majority of firms and jobs in most countries, their ability to become more productive and trade successfully tends to translate into income gains for people in the poorer, more vulnerable segments of society – and is thus crucial if trade is to regain widespread public support as an engine of inclusive economic growth. SMEs that neither import nor export tend to be less productive and pay lower wages than firms that do either (or both).

Complying with standards and regulations is increasingly a prerequisite for market entry. This can create commercial opportunities for SMEs: when a given requirement is associated with an international value chains, compliance can open the door to privileged access to buyers within that value chain. In such cases, standards and regulations can help facilitate SME access to international markets.

Yet meeting standards and regulations generally implies costs for SMEs. These costs in turn depend to a significant extent on how the measures are designed, and on the quality and affordability of the local technical infrastructure for testing and certifying conformity with standards and regulations. When standards are designed with little thought for suppliers’ needs and technical institutions are weak, compliance costs can quickly become prohibitive, especially for smaller firms. Analysis in the SME Competitiveness Outlook 2016 showed that this regulatory burden hits small firms twice as hard as large firms: a 10% increase in the regulatory burden cuts export revenue for large firms by 1.6%, but by 3.2% for small firms. If small firms’ margins are narrower, the impact on profitability will be greater still.

FIGURE 1 Global trade growth: Medium- and short-term trends

Left Panel: (left axis) Index of world export volumes of goods and services where 2001=100. (right axis) Percentage change of year-on-year export volumes. Source: IMF World Economic Outlook, October 2016.

Right panel: Quarter on quarter seasonally adjusted merchandise export growth volumes for developed and developing economies. Source: World Trade Organization.

0%

-5%

-10%

-15%

5%

10%

15%

20%

Growth ratesIndex of world export volumes (2001=100) Index (2001=100)

20162002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 20142001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015

Developed countries Developing countries

0

25

50

75

100

125

150

175

200

225

20162002 2004 2006 2008 2010 2012 20142001 2003 2005 2007 2009 2011 2013 2015

S.A. export growth in volume terms (%)

‐3.0

‐2.0

‐1.0

0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

Developed countries Developing countries

Consumer protection

Environmental sustainability

Social responsibility


Encouraging good trade: An action plan

The SME Competitiveness Outlook 2016 highlights five ways policymakers can ensure that standards and regulations work for and not against SMEs, in turn fostering trade that is socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable.

1. Facilitate access to information: Obtaining information on the plethora of mandatory and voluntary standards and regulations can be costly, especially for smaller firms. Trade and investment support institutions can help address this challenge by disseminating relevant information and directly responding to the needs of the businesses with which they interact.

2. Enable firms to comply with technical standards: For firms considering whether to implement a standard or regulation, the costs are tangible and immediate, while the benefits lie in the future and can be hard to estimate. Tools and training to help firms better understand these trade-offs can help firms make better decisions. Becoming part of a value chain can help suppliers overcome financial barriers, as some lead firms share the burden of certification and implementation costs. (Though an inability to comply with standards can keep SMEs out of such value chains in the first place.)

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Export Potential and Diversification Assessment: Helping policymakers think strategically about trade

ITC’s Export Potential and Diversification Assessment (EPDA) draws on trade, tariff, output and geographic data to evaluate countries’ potential to ramp up exports. For products already in a country’s export basket, it identifies new or underexploited markets; for diversification purposes, it identifies promising product lines and markets.

In the case of Egypt, to take one example, the analysis reveals $1 billion worth of unrealized potential to export glazed ceramic tiles to developing countries. It identifies man-made carpets and pistachios as offering significant possibilities to diversify the country’s export basket.

Understanding which products offer the highest export potential allows policymakers to focus finite resources and attention on reforms to sectors likely to yield the greatest benefits to the economy in terms of increased exports.


3. Support technical infrastructure: For governments, especially in developing countries, building the technical infrastructure related to conformity assessment is complex and potentially costly. Standards and regulations are specific to certain sectors – a laboratory to test food additives is very different from a crash-testing institute for vehicles, or a financial regulatory institution – presenting difficult decisions about how to allocate finite resources. Countries would understandably want to align their investments in technical infrastructure with sectors likely to deliver the highest return in terms of increased exports. To help countries make these decisions strategically ITC has developed the Export Potential and Diversification Assessment, which, as the name suggests, is a tool to identify sectors and products with high export potential.

4. Strengthen governance at home: One of the most common causes of delays in administrative and compliance procedures for exports is a lack of coordination among organizations involved in trading process, such as conformity assessment bodies and border agencies. Rectifying this would help, as would clearly demarcating the roles and responsibilities of all institutions involved in national technical infrastructure.

5. Leverage international mechanisms: Certifying goods or services at home only facilitates trade if conformity assessment bodies in foreign markets recognize the certificate. Participation in mutual recognition agreements for certification, or in efforts to harmonize standards and regulation across borders, can be of enormous benefit to lowering such obstacles and is an area in which multilateral and regional fora can contribute greatly to facilitating trade.

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1.6% 2.6% 3.2%

Increase in regulatory burden Decrease in export values

Large firms Medium firms Small firms

10%

Regulatory burdens hit small firms hardest

U N S D G s I T C

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U N S D G s I T C

ITC interventions: Doing more, better


What ITC delivered in 2016

The figures below provide a snapshot of how ITC delivered on its mandate in 2016. In the United Nations planning and budgeting cycle, targets are set for two-year periods. The figures below show some of ITC’s key results for the first half of the 2016–2017 biennium. Some of the numbers relate to

indicators for assessing ITC’s performance against the overarching goals defined in its Strategic Plan for 2015–17. Others reflect ITC’s overall performance in terms of spurring inclusive trade.

Strengthened integration of the business sector into the global economy

Improved international competitiveness of enterprises

Empowering women in the global economy

Improved performance of trade and investment support institutions (TISIs) for the benefit of enterprises

233 000additional users of trade intelligence have greater awareness of international trade as a result of ITC support (biennium target: 175 000)

170TISIs indicated ITC support helped them improve operational and/or managerial performance (biennium target: 400)

6 500 additional enterprises were supported to improve their international competitiveness or to meet buyers with whom they subsequently transacted business (biennium target: 14 000)

22 000 participants in ITC training courses (biennium target: 20 000)

600 000 Signatories to the SheTrades initiative pledged to connect 600 000 women entrepreneurs to international markets by 2020 (2020 target: 1 million)

51% of the 6 500 additional enterprises referenced above were owned, operated and controlled by women. (biennium target: 40%)


Key performance indicators

The below indicators track ITC’s delivery of technical assistance and work to enhance effectiveness.

Leveraging funding into trade

ITC has estimated the value of international business transactions generated through its interventions in 2016. The projection is based on three components: feedback from users of ITC market intelligence tools; documented

business leads and deals; and additional exports generated through the operational and managerial efficiency gains achieved by the 18 TISIs that worked closely with ITC.

$85.4 million

$685 million

ITC’s delivery across all budgets

in estimated export and investment value resulting from ITC market intelligence, business connections and support to TISIs

>85% of country-specific assistance went to priority countries (target: 70%)

$201 million

in pipeline projects laying foundation for future growth (target: $175 million)

$78 million

97% of clients$1 $21

$1 $14

XB funds raised for 2017 and beyond (target: $95 million)

rated ITC services positively (target: 80%)

Each dollar invested in ITC’s Business Development Fund catalyzed $21 in XB funding (target: $20)

ITC leverages each dollar in XB funding into $14 of international export and investment transactions

2017


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Transparency in Trade

The Transparency in Trade Programme aims to improve the trade and investment decisions of companies, notably small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), trade and investment support institutions (TISIs) and policymakers. In particular, it assists SMEs in better targeting their products towards the most promising markets and in diversifying and adding value to their products. ITC has developed a suite of online tools and databases to make global trade more transparent and facilitate access to new markets.

Key results

$300 million in trade transactions enabled by ITC market intelligence tools

>600 000 registered users of ITC market analysis tools; 3 500 downloads of mobile app

2.8 million visits to Trade Map: 1 visit every 11 seconds – 28% increase over 2015

47new video tutorials on trade analysis; over 1 500 enrollments

1 331 downloads of 2016 SME Competitiveness Outlook following publication in October

Highlights

ITC in 2016 started building a database covering all existing and prospective trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific region. Accessible through the Market Access Map tool, the database will include tariff reduction schedules for 25 countries under different trade agreements. It will help businesses and policymakers make sense of the so-called ‘noodle bowl’ of overlapping trade agreements in the region and assist in trade-related decision-making.

A demonstration version of ITC’s new Export Potential Map tool was launched in November at the World Trade Promotion Organization Network World Conference and Awards in Marrakesh, Morocco. More than 150 trade and investment promotion leaders from around the world expressed avid interest in using this new tool, which uses ITC’s Export Potential and Diversification Assessment methodology to spot sectors and markets with unused or underutilized export potential. With a user-friendly interface and innovative visualizations, the Export Potential Map translates rigorous analysis into practical information about trade opportunities.

A comprehensive export potential assessment identified promising export sectors, both traditional and new, in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique and Zambia. Complemented by interviews with stakeholders in each country, the analysis will inform the design and implementation of the Partnership for Investment and Growth in Africa (PIGA) project as it seeks to boost trade and investment ties between China and the four African countries.

The SAI Platform, a sustainability initiative backed by more than 90 international food and beverage companies with combined annual turnover in the hundreds of billions of dollars, has based its new Farm Sustainability Assessment

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U N S D G I T C

Providing trade and market intelligence

ITC INTERVENTIONS: DOING MORE, BETTER


online tool on ITC’s Standards Map, which contains information on more than 230 voluntary standards. The new tool will help SAI Platform members meet their sustainable sourcing targets and provide their thousands of suppliers with information about complying with sustainability criteria and avoiding duplication in sustainability assessments.

The second edition of ITC’s flagship research publication was launched in October. SME Competitiveness Outlook 2016: Meeting the Standard for Trade contains analysis and practical recommendations for policymakers, SME managers and standard-setters on how to enable SMEs to meet standards and regulations – often a prerequisite for participating in international value chains – in order to drive growth and job creation.

ITC market intelligence tools are global public goods that continue to provide up-to-date trade information to businesses, researchers and journalists around the world. Based on ITC’s annual user survey, the tools helped generate around $300 million in trade transactions in 2016 (see case study).

Non-Tariff Measures

The Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs) Programme brings the concerns of SMEs about regulatory and procedural trade obstacles to the attention of policymakers and other stakeholders, enabling concrete, specific responses. It increases the transparency of NTMs through company-level data collection and dissemination and provides thought leadership through applied research and analysis, thus contributing to evidence-based policymaking and reduced trade costs.

Key results

NTM surveys in 13 developing countries

>18 000 trade-related regulations for 90 countries documented in Market Access Map tool

Highlights

ITC’s NTM Surveys (www.ntmsurvey.org) and trade obstacles alert mechanisms in 2016 channelled views from more than 5,700 SMEs in 13 developing countries to decision-makers. The surveys and alerts provide evidence about trade obstacles that businesses encounter on the ground; related stakeholder consultations in Benin, Comoros, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Mali, Nepal, the Philippines, the Seychelles and Uganda, as well as at the regional level in West Africa, explored practical ways to remove these obstacles.

ITC NTM analysis informed the work of a Philippines government technical committee on simplifying trade procedures as well as ITC-backed sector export strategies in Nepal. It has in some instances already led to tangible changes on the ground, exemplified by the partial removal of an export ban on scrap metals in Mauritius after businesses reported it to the country’s trade obstacles alert mechanism.

In addition, a business survey across the 28 European Union (EU) member states shed light on the NTM-related barriers EU companies encounter when exporting to and sourcing from developing countries. Based on input from more than 8,000 EU firms – of which four out of every five

1. National roundtable on non-tariff measures, Uganda 2. ITC Market Access Map booth, Central Asian Trade Forum 2016, Kazakhstan

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were SMEs – the survey yielded insights that in turn will serve as a benchmark for comparison for the challenges reported by businesses based in those developing countries.

Transparency, research and analysis efforts continued in 2016. New ITC country publications for Thailand, Indonesia and Egypt brought the NTM series total to 28.

By year’s end, information on more than 18,000 regulations on exports and imports applied by 90 countries was available online through the Market Access Map tool. For certain countries, such as Jordan and Bangladesh, this data was complemented by information on administrative procedures related to exporting and importing.

In November, ITC, the World Trade Organization and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs jointly launched a new regulatory alert system, called ePing, that will notify users when countries announce changes to their health and safety standards or technical regulations for products of interest to them (see case study). The goal is to keep users informed about regulatory changes and to give businesses an opportunity to signal potential trade irritants to national authorities so they can be swiftly resolved.

While ITC’s NTM survey work has thus far concentrated on trade in goods, it will soon extend to services after the finalization and testing in 2016 of a methodology to capture barriers experienced by operators in the information technology, transport and logistics and tourism sectors.

Competitive Intelligence

The ITC Competitive Intelligence Programme delivers training and advisory services and develops online solutions to strengthen the capacity of TISIs in developing economies to provide clients with the real-time customized intelligence they need to improve operational performance and compete more effectively on international markets. It also assists SMEs to define their information needs, identify opportunities and anticipate risks.

Key results

Trade information portal created in Zimbabwe

Enabled TISIs in 3 African countries to make market data more accessible to clients

Highlights

In Zimbabwe, ITC set up a national Trade Information Portal (tradezimbabwe.com), drawing on inputs from a network of trade-related institutions. The portal provides the country’s business community with up-to-date news and intelligence on foreign markets and their requirements, covering issues ranging from customs procedures, export guidelines and trade agreements through to information about business opportunities and useful contacts. The portal functions as an online international showcase for Zimbabwean companies, goods, services and local business opportunities. In addition, tradezimbabwe.com hosts the online European Business Information Centre, an online service platform containing Europe-specific information services for manufacturers and exporters interested in European markets. The platform also serves to connect

1. Trade Investment Facilitation Mechanism meeting, Egypt 2. Roundtable on non-tariff measures, Nepal

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European entrepreneurs to Zimbabwean companies, products and opportunities.

In Tunisia, ITC laid the groundwork for establishing a monitoring cell to provide business intelligence on trends, risks and opportunities in online trade. Once it comes online in early 2017, the service, which will operate through the country’s Centre de Promotion des Exportations (CEPEX), will enable better decision-making and expand access to markets for Tunisian SMEs that sell goods and services over the internet.

In the Bahamas, ITC was chosen by the Caribbean Development Bank to build a trade information portal in coordination with the country’s Ministry of Financial Services and the Bahamian Chamber of Commerce. The portal will serve as a one-stop shop to meet the informational needs of local entrepreneurs seeking to internationalize their operations and should thus contribute to helping the country diversify away from its current overreliance on tourism and off-shore services. It will also be a bridge for foreign entrepreneurs to build links to Bahamian suppliers of goods and services.

Finally, in Kenya, the United Republic of Tanzania, and Zambia, ITC accompanied a project on promoting intraregional trade with training for TISIs on how to collect and present market data for their clients. Kenya’s Export Promotion Council has deployed its new expertise to regularly circulate information on mango trade to

stakeholders in the sector. The Zambia Development Agency in February created a competitive intelligence portal for its honey sector to help industry actors make better business decisions.

2016 Funders

Core funders

Canada, China, Finland, Germany, India, Ireland, Sweden

Project-specific funders

Caribbean Development Bank, Denmark, European Union, European Feed Manufacturers’ Federation (FEFAC), Germany, Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries (HIVOS), Islamic Centre for Development of Trade, Japan, PepsiCo, Russian Federation, Sime Darby, Switzerland, Stichting IDH Sustainable Trade Initiative, Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI) Platform, United Kingdom, United States, UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN Environment Programme (UNEP)

SME Trade Academy in Libya: Developing entrepreneurship in a fragile state

In the second half of 2016 ITC partnered with Expertise France, the French international technical cooperation agency, to develop and launch a pilot Arabic-language course for young Libyan entrepreneurs. The youth-oriented course provides an understanding of entrepreneurship as a way to overcome difficult economic conditions.

In light of the country’s political instability, the six-week course was rolled out in collaboration with municipalities and seven universities in cities such as Tripoli, Misrata and Benghazi. The local partners complemented the online courses with in-person information and coaching.

Despite electricity shortages and repeated bouts of insecurity, 1,074 young people, over a quarter of them women, self-enrolled in the course, of whom 303 successfully completed it and received a digital certificate. Course participants came from 40 locations all over Libya (see map).

The goal of this pilot project was to confirm that e-learning, backed by local coaching, can be an effective approach for capacity building in Libya. Based on the positive initial results, Expertise France has announced further funding while including the project in a larger European Union-funded programme for sustainable economic

development in Libya. Thanks to this support, Expertise France and ITC will in 2017 and 2018 expand the SME Trade Academy’s Libya-focused offerings to a 100-hour curriculum accompanied by online tools for entrepreneurs starting businesses in Libya, and in doing so contribute to the country’s economic recovery.

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CASE STUDY

ePing: Cooperating to give SMEs real-time information about non-tariff measures

The challenge

For companies around the world, meeting technical regulations and product standards is an increasingly important part of doing business, whether internationally or at home. With manufacturing production increasingly fragmented across countries and regions, standards play a critical role in insuring that components made in one factory fit where they belong in another. Meanwhile, consumer expectations for product safety, quality and sustainability have steadily increased. ITC’s Market Access Map tool now counts more than 13,000 regulations and conformity assessment procedures that come under World Trade Organization (WTO) rules for Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) measures and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT).

The growing number of such non-tariff measures (NTMs) makes trading more complex, in particular for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries. These firms often struggle to make sense of the plethora of health and safety requirements, product regulations, testing and certification procedures and other such measures necessary for market entry.

ITC business surveys conducted in more than 60 countries reveal that over 50% of the trade obstacles encountered by businesses relate to SPS and TBT measures.

Meanwhile, the number of NTMs continues to grow. Each year, governments notify the WTO of more than 3,500 TBT and SPS measures, in line with transparency obligations for policies that may affect international trade. The notifications are supposed to give trading partners advance notice to understand and comment on impending policy changes. However, SMEs already struggling to cope with existing NTMs are ill-equipped to digest these new flows of information.

The response

ITC joined hands with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and the WTO to set up ePing, an online alert mechanism for new SPS and TBT notifications. After signing up (registration is free), users receive daily or weekly alerts on new WTO notifications in sectors and markets of interest to them. SMEs are thus better equipped to share any concerns about prospective market requirements with their own national authorities and ultimately to understand and comply with measures that eventually enter into force.

More broadly, by enabling real-time debate on specific product requirements, the online tool supports timely and effective engagement among private sector and public stakeholders on SPS and TBT issues.

The ePing system complements ITC’s suite of online trade and market intelligence tools, which accessibly present data on trade, investment, tariffs, NTMs, private standards and government procurement. In addition to the real-time alerts, companies can use ePing to search for older SPS and TBT notifications for sectors and markets they operate in.

The results

Prior to its global launch on 8 November, the ePing mechanism was tested in countries including Australia, Canada, Nepal, the Philippines and Uganda. User feedback has been positive, with government officials and business representatives praising the system for enhancing transparency around NTMs and enabling companies to prepare for policy change.

‘ePing is a useful platform for our exporters and stakeholders to readily access new trade challenges that affect their products and markets,’ said Nora Terrado, undersecretary for the Philippines’ Department of Trade and


Industry. ‘This tripartite project has certainly improved accessibility and transparency on prevalent NTMs for SMEs participating in the global trade without additional costs to them.’

‘ePing provides timely information on technical regulations in fisheries for my members,’ added Ovia Katiti Matovu, head of the Uganda Fish Processors and Exporters Association and a user of the new system. ‘I am now able to receive and share information with my members on changes in technical regulations notified to the WTO, as well as to engage in discussions on the chat forum relating to various notifications of concern.’ She said that the mechanism made it easy for her to communicate about NTMs with members of the business association she leads.

The future

Together with its partners, ITC will work to integrate ePing with other types of trade information and alerts. A key priority will be making the ePing system more accessible internationally, notably through partnerships with local institutions to translate the notifications into languages beyond English, French, and Spanish. Customized ePing interfaces could be built into national trade intelligence portals.

1. ©shutterstock.com 2. ePing launch at the World Trade Organization, Geneva 3. ePing web platform ©shutterstock.com

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Partners

United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, World Trade Organization

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‘ePing is a useful platform for our exporters and stakeholders to readily access new trade challenges that affect their products and markets. This tripartite project has certainly improved accessibility and transparency on prevalent NTMs for SMEs participating in the global trade without additional costs to them. ’

Nora Terrado, Undersecretary, Department of Trade and Industry, the Philippines


CASE STUDY

Equipping SMEs with the information they need to access markets

The challenge

Even in the information age, the kinds of information that businesses need when trying to sell into new markets can be hard to find. Data on international demand trends and information about tariff levels and requirements – like health and safety standards in target markets – tends to be fragmented, unavailable or expensive. Voluntary sustainability standards are increasingly de facto requirements to enter some lucrative market segments. Even before companies can grapple with the costs of certification they must understand which standards are relevant in a given market and what they would need to do to comply.

The costs and time associated with such intelligence-gathering weigh heavily on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), especially those in developing countries, which tend to be less internationally competitive in the first place. As a result, it becomes harder than it should be for SMEs to buy or sell across borders and connect to value chains.

Moreover, even when firms are able to internationalize, prices may fall if they end up contributing to a supply glut. With better knowledge of market demand and price trends, SMEs would be able to make better trade-related decisions.

The response

Making trade information available to businesses in developing countries has been ITC’s raison d’être since its founding. Starting in 1999, ITC created a suite of online market intelligence tools that are completely free for users in developing countries. These global public goods – Trade Map, Market Access Map, and Standards Map – hold data from more than 190 countries and make it easy to visualize through tables, graphs and maps. Some of the data in the tools – on non-tariff measures, ad valorem equivalent tariffs and tariff quotas – cannot be found elsewhere; ITC experts calculate the statistics and share them with other international agencies.

ITC market intelligence tools help users – exporters, importers, journalists, researchers, and others – navigate the constantly changing landscape of international trade and regulations. For instance, a would-be exporter can use Trade Map to discover which markets for her SME’s products have been the most dynamic in recent years and access contact information for importers in those markets. She can then advance to Market Access Map to see whether her country benefits from preferential tariff access to a target market and to understand the tariff rates and non-tariff measures that would apply to her products. Finally, Standards Map would allow her to identify any relevant sustainability standards and determine whether they might be worth adopting.

A parallel component of ITC’s work is to train representatives from businesses, governments, trade and investment support institutions (TISIs) and the media in the use of the market intelligence tools, contributing to better analysis and a fact-based understanding of trade.

In 2016, the number of registered users of ITC market intelligence tools surpassed 600,000, with over 3.2 million online visits.

The results

In 2016, ITC market intelligence tools helped generate around $300 million in trade transactions, based on businesses’ responses to ITC’s annual survey of users.

One such business was Maneks Dis Ticaret, an Istanbul-based trading company dealing in iron and steel products, cement and metallic ores. Yilmaz Manisali, its director of business development, said that the up-to-date trade data in ITC tools, especially Trade Map, had helped the company make profitable business decisions, bolstering sales while minimizing costs.

‘ITC tools have been instrumental for us in the planning stage – they have allowed us to identify our target markets

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1. Export Potential Map tool ©shutterstock.com 2.&3 Market Access Map workshops, Oman and Ethiopia

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where we later enjoyed considerable sales,’ Manisali said. He explained that ITC tools had not only helped the company increase export revenues by targeting the right markets, they had made it possible to reduce shipping costs. ‘We have studied export-import routes of certain products and through this information were able to establish trading routes in the opposite direction of busy lines, thus allowing us to have very reasonable freight rates,’ he said.

Providers of business advisory services also use ITC tools to help their clients overcome obstacles to accessing foreign markets.

‘ITC tools are of great use in our export service’, said Lorena Zamudio Benitez, general manager at Dragon Pacific International, a company based in Mexico’s Michoacán state that provides consulting services to exporters. ‘They help us evaluate potential markets and to find tariffs and non-tariff measures; and with this information we can advise our clients which products to promote abroad.’

A manager at Bors Dis Ticaret, a medium-sized Turkish exporter of baby clothes and home furniture, said ‘ITC’s market analysis tools are like a compass for us. They provide highly detailed information for our sector and guide us to make the right decisions at the end of the day.’

Feedback on ITC’s market intelligence training work has been similarly positive. In Viet Nam in 2016, ITC trained some 50 trainers affiliated with the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Foreign Trade University in the use of the tools, who in turn ran courses around the country for more than 600 representatives from businesses and the government. According to a participant survey 42% of the businesses increased exports following the training, while slightly higher proportions connected to new clients or markets either for exporting or importing.

The future

ITC’s suite of global public goods in trade intelligence is set to expand. ITC experts are constructing what will be the world’s most comprehensive database on preferential rules of origin associated with bilateral and regional free trade agreements (FTAs). Businesses, especially SMEs, often struggle to understand these rules and related administrative procedures, with the result that they cannot utilize the market access negotiated in an FTA. The new database, which will be operational by the end of 2017, will give users visibility and practical guidance on origin-related rules and procedures.

Following avid interest in the Export Potential Map at its demonstration launch in late 2016, ITC is preparing a wider rollout in 2017. Information about potential for trade in services and for building export-oriented regional value chains is being added to the methodology to give clients a complete picture of promising sectors for export growth and diversification.

Funders

European Union, Germany, Japan, Russian Federation, Switzerland

‘ITC tools have been instrumental for us in the planning stage; they have allowed us to identify our target markets where we later enjoyed considerable sales.’

Yilmaz Manisali, Director of Business Development, Maneks Dis Ticaret, an Istanbul-based trading company


Trade Development Strategy

The Trade Development Strategy Programme enables partner country decision-makers to identify priorities, set policy directions and act to further integrate their economies into international trade and investment. Through the design and management of sector, national and regional strategies, the programme aims to achieve higher levels of market-led trade performance, especially of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), to improve growth, job creation and living standards.

Key results

9 strategy solutions delivered in 7 countries

Established 13 public-private dialogue platforms to manage, monitor and measure strategy implementation

Supported strategy implementation in 4 countries

Highlights

In 2016, ITC worked with Myanmar to manage the implementation of the country’s National Export Strategy (NES), developed with ITC’s technical assistance two years earlier. Some 96 projects, implemented by a wide range of international development partners, public and private sector actors, have contributed to meeting the NES’s objectives of spurring export-led growth and job creation in high-potential sectors. Ten sector-focused committees established with ITC support worked with Myanmar’s Trade and Business Promotion Task Force to coordinate implementation and ensure alignment with the strategy. ITC also provided support to trade strategy design and management initiatives in Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mauritius, Nepal and the United Republic of Tanzania.

In Liberia, following consultations with more than 200 policymakers, trade and investment support institutions (TISIs) and enterprises, ITC helped the government develop a plan to diversify its export portfolio into the tourism and wooden furniture sectors. This work built on the 2014 National Export Strategy that ITC helped the country develop. Aimed at driving economic transformation through value-addition, these two new sector strategies set out a series of actions at the policy, institutional, enterprise and market partner levels to boost productive capacity and upgrade infrastructure to trigger latent potential for greater domestic and international trade.

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In Ukraine‘s southern regions of Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odessa, ITC brought together government authorities and fruit and vegetable producers to remodel traditional value chains and market linkages and revive the competitiveness of local SMEs. More than 150 stakeholders, including 44 women, charted a roadmap to create and capture more value. This roadmap is now being implemented by national authorities with support from ITC.

In Qatar, which wants to cut its reliance on oil and gas, ITC facilitated consultations among public- and private-sector leaders to identify sectors with high export development potential. This work also looked at the investment requirements, business climate reforms and support services required to stimulate entrepreneurship and realize that potential. The resulting Strategic Trade Development Roadmap details quick-win actions aimed at creating employment opportunities through diversified trade within the region and around the world.

Trade Facilitation

The Trade Facilitation Programme works with policymakers in developing and least developed countries to implement trade facilitation reforms aimed at reducing the cost of doing business. It also partners with logistics operators and other trade facilitation stakeholders to ensure that SMEs are able to understand and comply with customs and other border requirements.

Key results

6 countries ITC worked with ratified the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement

11 countries assisted to estimate needs for technical and financial assistance to implement TFA obligations

>2 000 women in Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda joined ITC-backed network for informal cross-border traders

Highlights

ITC contributed to the design and adoption of policy recommendations for implementing the World Trade Organization (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) in Curaçao, Dominica, Haiti, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). The WAEMU work was notable for the consensus ITC helped the 15-member bloc reach on implementing the TFA at a region-wide level (see case study).

A central plank of this assistance was the establishment of inclusive inter-agency and public-private dialogue processes to ensure that business perspectives factor into the design of cross-border reforms, and that SMEs in particular are empowered to understand and comply with border requirements. In some cases this support involved setting up or strengthening national trade facilitation committees (NTFCs). These committees are required under the TFA and bring together stakeholders such as border agencies, logistics service providers and traders. They play an important role in designing and monitoring trade

1.&2. Site visit: Wood furniture producer, Liberia

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facilitation implementation. ITC worked to ensure that the private sector, especially SMEs, were represented on NTFCs. ITC assisted Botswana, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal, Tajikistan and Ukraine in establishing or strengthening such committees.

Three countries ITC had supported on TFA-related issues – Afghanistan, Dominica and Senegal – ratified the TFA in 2016. In addition, ITC helped 11 countries estimate needs and develop project proposals for the technical and financial assistance they require to implement so-called ‘Category C’ obligations under the TFA.

To enhance the impact of its trade facilitation interventions, ITC developed a network of partnerships with leading public and private stakeholders, including the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE), the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), Brazil’s Ministry of Development Industry and Foreign Trade and the World Economic Forum. Cooperative work has ranged from technical training to the publication of materials on TFA implementation.

In Burundi, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania, more than 2,000 women informal cross-border traders joined an ITC-backed network that serves as a vehicle for disseminating knowledge about cross-border procedures, increasing their ability to trade more safely and to formalize and grow their businesses.

Supporting Trade Negotiations

The ITC Supporting Trade Negotiations Programme assists business associations to articulate private-sector views and influence policymakers to ensure that trade negotiations, national policies and regulatory reforms reflect business perspectives. The key aim is to contribute to policy coherence and a more conducive business environment.

Key results

Supported Sudan’s preparation of Memorandum of Foreign Trade Regime and Legal Action Plan for WTO accession

Supported the Comoros in revamping investment code

Assisted Tonga in drafting National Trade Policy Framework

Highlights

In least developed countries (LDCs) acceding to the WTO, ITC works to build capacity among businesses, TISIs and governments to understand – and prepare to seize – the opportunities presented by membership in the global trade body. In 2016, ITC supported Sudan’s efforts to re-launch its WTO bid by assisting the government to draft its ‘Memorandum of Foreign Trade Regime.’ This document, a mandatory step in the accession process, was submitted to the WTO Secretariat.

ITC also helped Sudan draft a legal action plan and an initial offer of services market-opening commitments. In addition, ITC worked to raise awareness about the implications of membership within the Sudanese business community. In

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1.&2. Site visit: Fruit and vegetable farm, Qatar 3. A market in the Comoros

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Comoros, ITC worked with the government to bring its investment code into alignment with international best practices and prospective WTO obligations.

ITC in 2016 built on earlier work aimed at tackling non-tariff measures (NTMs) impeding intraregional trade in the auto-parts and beverage sectors within the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA, see case study). ITC worked with member governments and the CEFTA Secretariat to overhaul competition laws and regulations as well as to curb anti-competitive practices by private operators.

In the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS), ITC followed up on earlier work with the OECS Commission to complete a regulatory assessment of key services sectors and produce a list of potential market-opening commitments in its negotiations with trading partners.

In coordination with the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, ITC assisted Tonga to draft a preliminary National Trade Policy Framework based on extensive public-private sector consultations aimed at aligning Tonga’s policies with enterprise supply chains.

In Pakistan, ITC contributed to enhancing the long-term capacity of the country’s Competition Commission, internally through the creation of a dedicated department to training and research and externally through a partnership to run courses on competition policy with the National University of Science and Technology.

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2016 Funders

Core funders



Enhanced Integrated Framework, European Union, Finland, France, Germany/Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, Italy, Qatar, Standards and Trade Development Facility, Switzerland, UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), Western NIS Enterprise Fund

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4. Workshop on Ukraine’s export strategy 5. Workshop on cross-border trade procedures, Burundi


CASE STUDY

Tackling non-tariff measures at the regional level to improve the business climate for trade

The challenge

Decades of progressive market-opening have lowered tariff barriers around the world, with the result that non-tariff measures (NTMs) now loom larger as a source of trade frictions.

NTMs cover a wide range of policies such as technical regulations, sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS), quantitative restrictions, various fees and charges, certification requirements and other conformity assessment issues. Many of these policies are designed to protect consumer safety and the health of humans, plants and animals. Conforming to the demands of NTMs can imply significant costs for traders – costs that weigh particularly heavily on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries.

Streamlining NTMs has become a major component of national trade policy agendas, including in bilateral and regional integration initiatives. Despite significant progress, important challenges remain, in particular the harmonization of procedures for the enforcement of NTMs, which themselves can be a substantial source of uncertainty, costs and delays.

The response

ITC works to address NTMs on multiple fronts. Transparency tools such as Market Access Map provide information on the requirements of thousands of mandatory and private standards. Business surveys reveal how companies in developing countries encounter NTM-related obstacles when seeking to trade across borders and shed light on whether those competitiveness-sapping obstacles are the result of bureaucratic procedures or the content of the measures themselves. The survey results can in turn be analysed to identify how regulatory and border agencies can remove inefficiencies that inhibit small firms in priority sectors from participating in the world economy but contribute little to achieving public policy goals. ITC works

with governments and regional institutions to design and implement solutions to smooth trade flows.

Building on the NTM surveys, ITC developed a three-step methodology to address regulatory and procedural obstacles to trade at the regional level. First, it works with regional institutions and national governments to identify priority sectors, regulations and value chains for intervention based on the potential benefits that would result from region-wide reforms. Next, they examine the underlying causes of regulatory and procedural obstacles. The final step is to design and implement plans to address regulatory and procedural obstacles.

The results

In response to relatively low levels of intraregional trade and investment, ITC has been working in regions including the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA), the Arab states, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to identify and eliminate non-tariff barriers.

In the CEFTA bloc over a 16-month period, ITC mobilized private-sector lead firms and suppliers in the auto-parts and beverage sectors to identify burdensome trade barriers and articulate their concerns in a manner conducive to designing policy and regulatory reforms to address them. Public-private dialogue forged an informed consensus among CEFTA stakeholders – companies and governments – on what the most cumbersome NTMs were and how to address them. (In the beverage sector, these included discriminatory excise duties and the lack of mutual recognition of quality certificates; in the auto sector, complex customs documentation requirements were a particular source of problems.)

CEFTA parties in 2016 introduced a raft of trade facilitation procedures aimed at resolving these issues, pledging to accord mutual recognition to each other’s legislation and trade-related documentation and to eliminate the main

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NTMs identified in early 2017. These reforms promise to make trade procedures in the region more transparent and predictable, reducing trade costs and making it easier for companies to do business across borders within the region and internationally.

In the Southern Mediterranean region, business survey results and a regional roundtable on NTMs have informed ITC’s work to foster economic integration across Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, the State of Palestine, Tunisia and Turkey. The EuroMed Trade Helpdesk was beta tested throughout 2016 ahead of a formal 2017 launch. Its online portal provides economic operators with information about trade statistics, customs procedures, business contacts, and tariff and non-tariff policies across the region while serving as a venue to share news and information about trade-related events. In addition, a problem-solving network of officials from trade and other ministries of the participating governments will work to increase transparency and promote intraregional trade and investment.

Alongside this work, ITC partnered with the League of Arab States and national institutions to address key NTM-related challenges identified through the business surveys. These included a lack of accredited laboratories to certify that products meet health and safety regulations; issues around the issuance and recognition of trade-related documents; and uncertainty about customs procedures. Thematic working groups produced a set of recommendations to promote region-wide harmonization of product quality and food safety measures as well as conformity assessment procedures.

In ECOWAS, where surveyed businesses indicated that trade within the region faced border surcharges and taxes not encountered in trade with the rest of the world, ITC and

the African Development Bank jointly organized a high-level regional roundtable on NTMs in June. At the gathering, delegates from across the region agreed to tackle these border costs. They also agreed on action to tackle other NTMs identified in the surveys, such as quality requirements and testing for agricultural products; difficulties getting certificates of origin proving that manufactured goods are made in the region; and a level of regulatory and procedural obstacles to trade that is generally high compared to the rest of the world.

The future

CEFTA parties have agreed on the recommendations for NTM-related policy reforms for the auto-parts and beverage supply chains, and are now in the process of implementing them. ITC and CEFTA will build on this by working with GIZ, the German technical cooperation agency, to address NTMs along other value chains in the region.

In the Arab states, ITC will continue to shed light on NTMs and work with governments and regional institutions to implement the action plans to address rules of origin, product quality and food safety.

In the ECOWAS region, the recommendations from the NTM work fed into regional integration projects that will start implementation in 2017, such as a regional trade barriers alert system.

Funders

Canada, China, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, India, European Union, United Kingdom, United States, Germany/GIZ

1. ©shutterstock.com 2. Training on non-tariff measures, Bangladesh 3. National roundtable on non-tariff measures, Philippines

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CASE STUDY

Leveraging WTO commitments to boost intraregional trade in West Africa

The challenge

Trading with one’s neighbours can be an important driver of value addition and job creation irrespective of a country’s level of development. But across much of the developing world – especially in Africa – levels of intraregional trade are low compared to those in Europe and North America. In the West African Economic and Monetary Union, a regional economic community comprising Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger and Togo, trade among the bloc’s members in 2014 accounted for a mere 13% of their total international commerce.

This situation is not for want of regional policy initiatives in favour of integration. Like other regional economic communities within Africa, the WAEMU countries (often referred to by their French acronym, UEMOA) have taken important steps to establish a common external tariff and customs code with the ultimate goal of establishing a single regional market.

Despite significant progress, however, companies in the region have struggled to trade more with each other across borders. A major reason for this is high trading costs. According to the World Bank Doing Business – Trading Across Borders indicators, conducting trade transactions in the WAEMU region is 15% more expensive than the world average and almost four times costlier than in advanced economies. Weak physical infrastructure, together with the high expenses and long delays associated with cross-border operations, discourages intraregional trade.

To address these challenges, WAEMU members in 2013 launched an ambitious trade facilitation programme with a view to ease intraregional goods trade by simplifying and harmonizing cross-border procedures and requirements. After World Trade Organization (WTO) members adopted the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) in Bali in December 2013, the WAEMU secretariat and its member governments decided to accelerate those efforts.

The response

Since early 2014, ITC has supported the WAEMU secretariat and its member states’ pursuit of a regionally harmonized and coordinated implementation of the TFA, with a view to achieving economies of scale while establishing a more predictable trading environment across the region. This has involved working towards region-wide consensus among public and private sector stakeholders from all WAEMU member states on modalities for implementing the TFA.

Under the TFA, developing countries need to divide their future obligations into three categories: Category A commitments, which they already implement or will do so immediately upon the agreement’s entry into force; Category B commitments, for which they require additional time; and Category C commitments, for which they require both time and technical or financial assistance.

While most governments will implement the TFA at the national level, ITC worked with WAEMU on an alternative path: implementing selected Category B and Category C measures region-wide, backed by a coordinated effort to raise the technical and financial assistance WAEMU members require.

Even for individual governments, categorizing TFA obligations and quantifying technical assistance needs is not straightforward as many developing countries have sought and received external technical assistance for the process. For the WAEMU bloc, ITC developed a conceptual framework to help the secretariat and member states identify measures suitable for a coordinated approach.

TFA obligations will be implemented regionally if they meet the following criteria: one, a majority of WAEMU countries place them in categories B or C; two, implementation would require the regional legal framework to be amended; three, they support the ‘corridor’ framework for regional integration; and four, if money and resources could be saved by implementing regionally instead of at the national level.

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Starting in June 2014, ITC supported the WAEMU secretariat to assess members’ TFA compliance, identifying gaps as well as best practices. They then assessed common technical and financial needs for TFA implementation in the region, developing detailed project proposals for the implementation of Category C measures in six of the bloc’s eight countries.

Region-wide implementation is not appropriate for all TFA measures, so ITC proposed a four-tiered scheme for the degree of cooperation on each obligation. The most basic tier, regional cooperation, involves information sharing across the WAEMU. The next level, regional harmonization, would include the development of WAEMU-wide guidelines leaving individual countries to determine when and in what order to implement measures. Regional coordination, the third level, would give the WAEMU secretariat region-wide oversight to ensure synchronous implementation. Only for the top tier would there be full regional implementation, with the WAEMU secretariat directly responsible for implementing measures on behalf of member governments.

The results

WAEMU members have reached consensus both on the principle of regional TFA implementation and on a set of measures to implement in a harmonized manner. At a March 2016 regional event organized by ITC in Dakar, public- and private-sector stakeholders from all WAEMU countries agreed on nine TFA measures for coordinated implementation. These include the TFA rules on publishing border procedures on the internet so that businesses can easily find them, establishing enquiry points for traders and ensuring border agency

coordination. Other measures selected include the TFA’s rules for how customs authorities manage risks related to goods transit and procedures for determining ‘authorized economic operators’ who qualify for speedier border clearance.

Following the regional workshop, the WAEMU adopted a series of recommendations including one to establish, with ITC support, a regional trade facilitation committee – a region-wide analogue of the national committees required under the TFA – to coordinate and oversee the implementation of the chosen measures.

The future

ITC will work to support the creation of national and regional trade facilitation committees, governance structures that will facilitate the implementation of the TFA at both levels. In particular, it will seek to ensure adequate private-sector participation on those committees so that the problems businesses encounter on the ground factor into policy reforms. ITC will also build a strong network of trade facilitation experts within the region to ensure sustained support for smooth border processes.

In addition, ITC will work with the WAEMU secretariat to replicate across the bloc best practices identified during the TFA compliance assessment. One example of such practices is electronic certificates of origin; currently, some members of the bloc still issue physical certificates for traded merchandise.

WAEMU’s collective approach to TFA implementation could ultimately be emulated by other regional economic communities.

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1.– 3. ©shutterstock.com

Funders

Canada, China, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, India, Qatar, UNCTAD


U N S D G I T C

Strengthening Trade and Investment Support Institutions

The Strengthening Trade and Investment Support Institutions (TISIs) Programme aims to improve the managerial and operational performance of TISIs so that they can better assist small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to internationalize. Its AIM for Results approach helps TISIs assess, improve and measure their performance. Other interventions work to foster dialogue among TISIs, to support the creation of new organizations when needed and to strengthen particular aspects of individual or groups of TISIs.

Key result

100% of TISIs surveyed would recommend ITC support to peer institutions

90% of TISI participants said ITC e-learning courses taught them new operational and managerial skills they can apply in their institutions

$280 million in estimated additional exports resulting from ITC’s intensive support to 18 TISIs

Highlights

In 2016, the programme provided case studies and research, institutional assessments, capacity building, networking and business generation support to more than 800 institutions. As a result of a September workshop in Zanzibar, managers from 15 TISIs from East Africa, Mauritius and Nepal reported improvements in member management and revenue generation. The Zanzibar National Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (ZNCCIA) reports that while only 55% of its mostly SME members paid their dues in 2015, 74% did so in 2016. The Computer Association of Nepal put the segmentation practices taught during workshop into practice, allowing its members to sign up online for different levels of membership and support based on their needs.

In 2016, 10 TISIs were benchmarked according to the AIM for Results methodology: Rwanda Development Board, Gambia Investment and Export Promotion Agency, Maroc Export, Canada Global Affairs, Mongolia National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, ZimTrade, ASEPEX (Agence sénégalaise de promotion des exportations, Senegal), Ghana Export Promotion Authority, ITHRAA (Public Authority for Investment Promotion and Export Development, Oman), and Pacific Islands Trade & Invest. For two of these – Maroc Export and ZimTrade – the exercise was a re-benchmarking following their graduation from the AIM for Results project. It demonstrated that both agencies had registered significant performance improvements, with scores moving from below average to first in class for the region.

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In 2016, ITC worked intensively with 18 TISI clients, leading to operational and managerial efficiency gains estimated to result in $280 million in additional exports. It substantively engaged with a further 105 TISIs, helping them remedy specific weaknesses such as business-to-business (B2B) capacity and other business generation activities. ITC also reached additional clients through e-learning modules, webinars, the tisibenchmarking.org platform and an associated newsletter.

Feedback from clients demonstrates a high level of satisfaction with ITC’s TISI performance improvement support as 100% of surveyed beneficiaries said they would recommend ITC services to other organizations.

In November ITC co-hosted, with Maroc Export, the 11th Trade Promotion Organization Network World Conference and Awards (WTPO) in Marrakesh, Morocco. More than 200 policymakers, business leaders and representatives from over 80 trade and investment promotion organizations from around the world attended the gathering.

1. Designing a performance roadmap with Mongolia’s National Chamber of Commerce and Industry 2. Workshop participants explore how to multiply their TISIs’ impact, Zanzibar

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2016 Funders

Core funders



Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), One UN, Saint Lucia

18

105

171

550+

IntensiveMulti-year engagement following

the AIM methodology

SubstantiveWorkshops, due diligence,

advisory support, etc.

TechnicalWebinars, e-learning, conferences, self-service

benchmarking, technical publications

Light Touchengages a large audience through newsletters,

media, publications, blogs, speaking opportunities

FIGURE 2 TISI clients approach and key outputs in 2016


CASE STUDY

Quantifying trade and investment support institutions’ impact on trade performance and GDP

The challenge

Trade and investment support institutions (TISIs) such as chambers of commerce, business associations and export promotion agencies play a critical role in enabling businesses to access the information and networks they need in order to succeed in international markets. For smaller companies, especially in developing countries, building expansive in-house capacity on trade-related matters is unfeasible, making TISIs that much more important. Nevertheless, TISIs around the world face increasing demands from their stakeholders, especially cash-strapped governments, to demonstrate that they are providing value for money.

For the kinds of work TISIs do, precisely quantifying the effects of their support to business clients is a challenge, exacerbated by the difficulty of attributing each of the different services they provide to particular impacts in terms of increased trade and investment.

In addition to complicating their efforts to justify their stakeholders’ investments and fees, these attribution issues are part of a more fundamental challenge for TISIs: the ability to understand the impact their various services generate is a prerequisite for improving resource allocation and shaping their service portfolios. Recognizing these

challenges, the network of European Trade Promotion Organizations (ETPO) asked ITC to coordinate an impact study to help them demonstrate the value they deliver.

ITC was well placed to answer the call, having for years worked with TISIs in developing and transition economies to support them in assessing, improving, and measuring their effectiveness and resource efficiency. The three-step process is dubbed ‘AIM for Results’.

The response

ITC invited a team of economists from the University of Geneva to conduct the study. The study team used data from three separate trade promotion organization (TPO) surveys, two conducted by the World Bank in 2005 and 2010 and a 2014 survey conducted by ITC in partnership with members of the ETPO network. In total, the database covered 94 countries with a special focus on 14 European TPOs.

The team developed an econometric methodology to compare different TPOs and measure the impact of changes in export promotion budgets on exports and GDP per capita. It also identified the TPO characteristics – whether governance, activities, funding level or funding source – that lead to the highest returns.

In partnership with

INVESTING INTRADE PROMOTION GENERATES REVENUE

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of ADDITIONAL EXPORTS spent on generates $1 $87

EXPORT PROMOTION

INCREASE IN GDP$384

&

additional


The results

The resulting report, Investing in Trade Promotion Generates Revenue, provided powerful evidence about how funding for TPOs can increase exports and GDP.

The study estimated that each additional dollar spent on helping companies to develop and improve their exports can generate $87 worth of additional exports and a $384 boost to GDP. It broke new ground in academic literature on the topic by showing that export promotion can have positive spinoffs in terms of higher productivity, even in non-exporting sectors.

In addition, the study showed that the managerial and operational practices of TPOs matter for countries’ exports as well as their broader economic performance. For instance, practices such as having private-sector representation on TPO boards; charging fees for services; concentrating on a limited number of sectors and target markets; and focusing on established exporters tend to be associated with higher returns both in terms of exports and GDP. The results also showed that investing in country branding and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can help drive more rapid GDP growth.

Walter Koren, chief executive officer of Advantage Austria, the country’s trade promotion agency, said the study ‘supports and strengthens our strong belief that trade promotion organizations provide a very high return on investment, help to develop a national economy and do contribute significantly to GDP growth.’ Maroc Export, Morocco’s trade promotion agency, has asked ITC to

conduct a similar study looking at its overall impact on Morocco’s exports as well as at how different export promotion programmes affect export results.

The future

The Investing in Trade Promotion Generates Revenue report will be used as a reference to encourage further research. ITC is committed to carrying out similar impact studies in other regions and to working with independent research organizations to develop and apply rigorous methodologies to measure the value created by trade and investment promotion organizations. The results of those studies will shed light on policies and practices that agencies could put in place to maximize their impact.

By continuing to collaborate with the research community on impact measurement, ITC aims to enhance the impact of its work to strengthen trade and investment promotion organizations. This in turn bolsters the extent to which these critical TISIs are able to contribute to SME trade success, and through it to broad-based growth and job creation.

1. Investing in Trade Promotion Generates Revenue report 2.&3. Workshop on improving performance measurement, Costa Rica

Funders

Finland, Germany

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CASE STUDY

Bolstering Zimbabwe’s infrastructure for standards compliance and certification

The challenge

The ability to meet standards and technical regulations in value chains and target markets has become a critical determinant of whether businesses can succeed in international trade.

However, for the vast majority of companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), compliance and conformity certification cannot happen in isolation. A well-functioning ecosystem of institutions and technical infrastructure is vital for companies to seize the international market opportunities presented by standards compliance. This ecosystem ranges from national standards bodies, which develop and promote standards; to testing and inspection laboratories that verify whether products are indeed compliant; certification bodies; and an array of technical regulatory agencies. The work of these bodies is critical for supporting enterprises to apply relevant standards, meet export market regulations and prove to trading partners that their products comply.

In many developing countries, however, quality-related technical institutions are often limited by insufficient resources, know-how and equipment. Testing facilities are inadequate and conformity-assessment bodies are frequently unrecognized in international markets. This imposes high costs and burdensome, time-consuming procedures on businesses that wish to obtain certification. This in turn hampers trade and limits its potential contribution to growth and socioeconomic development.

Zimbabwe is one such country. It faces multiple obstacles to realizing its goal of expanding international trade and making optimal use of opportunities afforded by regional integration initiatives and the interim Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union. One of these is the limited capacity of the country’s quality-related support institutions. Without inspection, testing and certification services that are accepted in export markets, whether within the region or further afield, exporters are unable to

demonstrate compliance with relevant standards and technical regulations, with the result that for them market-opening agreements exist largely on paper.

Another hindrance for would-be exporters is that Zimbabwe’s regulatory authorities often lack the technical capacity to develop and implement technical regulations and standards in line with the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT). The resulting misalignment with regional and international standards also curbs Zimbabwean companies’ ability to access foreign markets.

The response

ITC has worked to enhance the capacities of Zimbabwe’s quality infrastructure, from its national standards body, the Standards Association of Zimbabwe (SAZ), to the laboratories that test and certify its export products, particularly agricultural goods.

Trainers within Zimbabwean government departments for research, agriculture, health and biotechnology were equipped to educate SMEs about standards and complying with European Union import requirements, in particular European Commission directives setting out maximum safe limits for residual levels of pesticide and veterinary antibiotics in food products. In addition, officials from the relevant ministries received training on WTO rules for health and safety standards and technical regulations to equip them to better help SMEs access foreign markets.

ITC worked with the SAZ to improve its certification schemes for key international management standards. These schemes certify entire companies as having world-class management processes, whether for their quality management system (ISO 9001), environmental management practice (ISO 14001), or workplace health and safety (OHSAS 18001). Having well-regarded management system certificates serves as a credible signal that

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companies can deliver high-quality goods and services and improves their standing in the eyes of potential buyers at home and abroad.

In addition, ITC trained testing and certification laboratories to meet an international standard that recognizes their competence to conduct tests and measurements for the purposes of accreditation (ISO 17025). When laboratories have this accreditation, it increases the acceptance of certificates they issue for Zimbabwean products in export markets. ITC also supported the acquisition of new testing equipment by the SAZ’s main testing facility.

The results

Since it started working with ITC, the SAZ has been able to ramp up the pace of certification. In 2016 it certified 125 companies to ISO 9001 quality management standards, 21 to ISO 14001 environmental management standards and 13 to OHSAS 18001 occupational health and safety management standards. Ten firms were certified to HACCP/ISO 22000, an international standard that builds on Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP), a widely used process for safe food production that is a prerequisite for entering several major markets. The SAZ’s laboratories have doubled their sample testing capacity, thus sharply increasing the number of products and companies that can receive certification every month.

In addition, SAZ-affiliated laboratories have expanded the range of tests they can conduct, allowing them to meet client needs they were previously unequipped to serve. Their main laboratory now houses analytical instruments for

gas chromatography mass spectrometry and high performance liquid chromatography. This makes it possible to separate and identify the different components of a sample and thus to detect dangerous fungal toxins and measure the detailed nutritional content and residual antibiotic or pesticide levels in potential food exports.

SAZ laboratories are already recognized by the Southern African Development Community’s region-wide accreditation system as competent to carry out chemical tests on water in accordance with ISO 17025. This is poised to expand to include mycotoxins, poisonous chemical products produced by fungi that can be present in food crops. The SAZ’s increased testing capacity will help Zimbabwean food products become more competitive within and beyond the country’s borders.

Finally, the project helped the SAZ achieve operational efficiencies through the use of software to track information related to standards.

The future

ITC will build on these results in partnership with institutions like the SAZ and the Ministry of Commerce and Industry with the goal of strengthening Zimbabwe’s quality infrastructure and in turn expanding and diversifying the country’s export base.

An initial priority will be to reinforce the capacities of the inspection agencies and four testing laboratories related to plant and veterinary health; biotechnology; and food and drug safety.

Funder

European Union

1. ©shutterstock.com 2.&3. Standards Association of Zimbabwe laboratory after refurbishment 4. Fruit and vegetable market, Zimbabwe

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U N S D G I T C

Connecting to International Value Chains

Value Added to Trade

The Value Added to Trade Programme focuses on enhancing the ability of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to meet market requirements and integrate into local, regional and global value chains. It works to make them more competitive by improving sector and enterprise-level capabilities, strengthening the ecosystems in which SMEs operate at each step of the value chain and building public-private dialogue platforms for wide-scale transformational change.

Key Results

Targeted sector development projects created

>1,200 jobs

Over $20 million worth of additional exports generated

Over 560 companies benefited from ITC technical assistance

Highlights

During 2016, ITC worked both to transform trade capacity across entire economic sectors and to upgrade individual aspects of value addition.

A single-funder portfolio of projects operating in Bangladesh, Kenya and Uganda to upgrade capabilities and exports in sectors ranging from information technology

(IT) services to avocados has increased exports by an estimated $20 million and created 1,254 new full and part-time jobs. Firms’ exports grew by an average of 71.4%; they broke into 33 new export markets and struck deals with 165 new clients. The Kenyan avocado industry (see case study) and Bangladesh’s IT and IT-enabled services sector registered some of the best performances.

In the Caribbean region, ITC worked closely with coconut producers, agro-processors, buyers and supporting institutions to lay the groundwork for boosting productive capacity and efficiency, product quality and value addition across the sector (see ITC Innovates story).

Better product packaging can be critical to a company’s efforts to move up the value chain. In the United Republic of Tanzania, ITC worked with the country’s Small Industries Development Organization to invest $250,000 in establishing a multi-purpose packaging facility. This will allow local food and beverage sector SMEs to purchase world-class packaging material up to 40% more cheaply than they could when their low order sizes meant that conventional packagers demanded unaffordable rates.

Improved quality and branding are also critical to add and capture value, both in goods and services. In Myanmar, ITC assisted public- and private-sector stakeholders to encourage economically inclusive and culturally respectful tourism in the country’s Kayah state (see case study). In Nepal, ITC assisted the pashmina sector to develop its first official branding guidelines and register the Chyangra Pashmina trademark. In Sri Lanka, ITC concluded a project to improve fruit and vegetable quality that has seen European Union health and safety alerts related to food imports from Sri Lanka decrease by about 40% since 2013.

In Zambia, ITC brought in international designers to help small-scale honey producers develop attractive labels,

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brands and marketing, enabling them to compete with larger firms in local and regional markets. In tandem with these branding improvements, ITC fostered links with international companies, including Argentina’s Parodi Group, that led to quality improvements and new export sales worth approximately $500,000.

E-Solutions

Trade in goods and services via digital networks has created major new business opportunities. But businesses in poorer countries, particularly SMEs, are hampered by factors such as weak logistics and a lack of access to payment systems. The E-Solutions Programme helps SMEs overcome these barriers.

Key result

Over $60 000 in sales generated by ‘E-Commerce Caravan’ for SMEs from Morocco, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Ethiopia and Syria

1 000 customers bought goods from the firms

Highlights

ITC in 2016 built on its innovative approach to supporting SMEs in developing and least developed countries to use e-commerce to make international transactions, driving increased sales, growth, and job creation.

Building on earlier work to enable a cooperative of Moroccan SMEs to sell internationally over the internet in a manner that was both economically competitive and legally compliant, ITC developed a demonstration platform to show how the Rwandan government could operationalize a proposed ‘Made in Rwanda’ e-commerce portal for the country’s SMEs to sell goods and services. This was followed by an e-commerce boot camp in Kigali in November, where 16 SMEs received hands-on training in how to create online content within the platform, which is set to go live in mid-2017.

ITC supported the creation of E-Com Coop, a business entity owned and managed by SMEs in Africa and the Middle East, to pool marketing efforts and collectively manage cross-border transactions, duties, taxes and agreements with big online marketplaces on behalf of its members. In July, some members of the E-Com Coop took part in an ‘E-Commerce Caravan’ (see box), a series of pop-up stores and events in Switzerland aimed at drumming up sales in person and online. In parallel to this work ITC has produced training materials and tools to

enable SMEs to evaluate the suitability of their products for e-commerce and to prepare more appealing listings.

The visibility and impact of these initiatives have enabled ITC to build new partnerships with key private sector companies. In July, eBay, the leading e-commerce platform, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with ITC to support SMEs in project beneficiary countries by promoting them online and providing them with analytical tools. Global law firm Sidley Austin is advising on legal models for international transactions. DHL Express continued to provide logistics and technical advisory support in Europe and Africa.

E-Commerce Caravan

Beyond access to online marketplaces, payment systems and logistics, businesses in developing countries face another big challenge with prospective online customers outside their home markets: trust. People are hesitant to buy from unfamiliar vendors unless they can see reviews from happy consumers. But firms cannot accumulate lots of positive testimonials if only a few people are buying their goods.

To help overcome this, ITC in July 2016 organized an ‘E-Commerce Caravan’ in Switzerland for SMEs from Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal and Syria. Pop-up stores in Geneva and Zurich allowed more than 70 firms to showcase goods ranging from foods to cosmetics and clothes directly to prospective customers and generated over $60,000 in sales in person and online, in addition to a substantial uptick in internet traffic.

The events featured virtual reality footage from Rwanda and Senegal that allowed visitors to the caravan to experience where some of the products came from.

2016 Funders

Core funders



Canada, Caribbean Development Bank, China, DHL, Ecuador/Corporación de Promoción de Exportaciones e Inversiones (CORPEI), Enhanced Integrated Framework, European Union, Germany, Islamic Development Bank, Japan, Republic of Korea, The Netherlands, Oman / The Public Authority for Investment Promotion and Export Development (ITHRAA), One UN, Sime Darby, Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF), Sweden, Switzerland, World Bank


CASE STUDY

Building peace and sustainable livelihoods through inclusive tourism in Myanmar

The challenge

Tourism is a potential tool for many developing countries to trade on their natural and cultural assets to generate jobs, higher incomes and growth. But translating tourism into sustainable development is far from straightforward. To attract international tourists, countries need investment in transport and hospitality infrastructure, a well-trained industry workforce and an ecosystem of support services. To earn a steady, non-seasonal revenue stream, would-be tourist destinations must develop a diversified portfolio of well-marketed products and services.

Finally, minimizing environmental impacts and including poor communities without exploiting their cultural heritage requires both sensitivity and sophisticated analysis.

Myanmar is one country grappling with these issues. Tourism already accounted for 29.5% of the country’s total exports in 2015; the sector’s revenues are expected to grow at a robust 8.5% annual rate over the next decade. Yet international tourist arrivals are heavily concentrated on six main destinations: Yangon, Bagan, Inle Lake, Kyaikhto, Mandalay and Ngapali Beach. Broadening this to other regions would enable more of the country to share directly in the economic benefits of tourism.

Kayah state in eastern Myanmar is one of the country’s poorest and suffered years of civil war from which refugees are only now seeking to return home. At the same time, the state is endowed with pristine nature and rich ethnic and cultural diversity. However, the low capacity of tourism providers – from hotels and restaurants to local tour operators and guides – has hampered prospects for sustainable tourism development. Until recently, the state was simply not on the map for international tour operators in Myanmar. The little tourism the state did receive tended to consist of short, poorly managed and ethically questionable village visits that left few income gains in the communities in question.

The response

Since 2014, ITC has been working with the Myanmar Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Hotels and Tourism, Union of Myanmar Travel Association and Myanmar Tourism Marketing to bolster the tourism industry in Kayah state and to make it an engine for sustainable development.

The project seeks to build skills across the tourism value chain and maximize benefits to local communities and businesses. A key objective is to responsibly showcase cultural and environmental resources, thus creating financial incentives for their preservation.

The project aims to identify and tackle bottlenecks at every step of the value chain. This can range from building respectful community-level tourism products where none exist, to training tour operators, building tourism sector business associations and fostering dialogue among governments and market stakeholders.

Community-based cultural tourism products were developed through a multi-step process bringing together youth, the elderly and people from across Kayah state’s ethnic fault lines. Twenty-five Myanmar tour operators based in Yangon were coached on export marketing and assisted to link up with international tour operators. Staff from national and local tourism associations were trained to deliver services more efficiently to clients such as tour operators. The project also published guidelines for developing better destination branding and promotional materials. In addition, ITC is working with the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) to enhance national capacity to gather tourism-related statistics – a prerequisite for effective policymaking in the future.

The results

In four traditional villages ITC helped develop respectful cultural tourism tours, creating jobs and increasing incomes for the ethnic minority residents, who in many cases were post-conflict returnees.

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More than 20 Myanmar-based inbound tour operators catering to foreign tourists have expanded their offerings to include the new Kayah state products; ITC is also training the companies to better reach international customers.

Previously absent in the region, local groundhandlers – the industry’s term for local operators dealing with hotels, transport and activities – developed to meet international tourists’ demand for authentic cultural experiences off the beaten path. For example, in 2015 Nay Moe Aung, who had some experience working with domestic tourists, set up 9Generations Travel and Tours. His company now works regularly with Yangon tour operators catering to international clients and is increasingly sought out by individual foreign travellers visiting the state.

International outbound tour operators are another set of important actors in driving tourism to Myanmar. ITC and its Myanmar-based partners worked to promote Kayah state at major international tourism fairs such as the Berlin Internationale Tourismus-Börse in March and the World Travel Market in London in November.

Between 2014 and 2016 the number of international tourists in Kayah state grew by about 140%. According to the Myanmar-based tour operators and Kayah state tourism providers working with the project, client spending in the state almost doubled over that period.

In Kayah, about 30 tourism-related SMEs, ranging from hotels and restaurants to food and beverage producers and groundhandlers, 35 local tourist guides and a pool of 20 trainees from the local government, ethnic villages and tourism associations are earning higher incomes and acquiring skills to expand tourism development.

‘Before the project started, visitors came to Kayah just for one day simply to visit and take pictures, which didn’t benefit the communities,’ said Aung of 9Generations Travel and Tours. ‘ITC is assisting Kayah with job opportunities and income, providing knowledge and opening eyes for socioeconomic development of the region.’

The project has also contributed to post-conflict reconciliation in the state by facilitating cooperation among government authorities, private businesses and local communities, notably through a state Public Private Dialogue Platform on tourism.

‘Tourism can bring peace to Myanmar. ITC’s inclusive tourism project has stabilized peace for Kayah state,’ said Ohn Maung, Myanmar’s Minister of Hotels and Tourism. Both President U Htin Kyaw and Vice President U Henry Van Thio have visited the project, praising it for preserving local culture and creating livelihood opportunities.

The future

In the final six months of the project, through June 2017, product development will be consolidated in two of the four villages, Htay Kho and Daw Ta Ma Gyi, alongside participation in major tourism trade fairs. Myanmar government officials have expressed interest in extending the Kayah state approach to other under-visited parts of the country. In close collaboration with national counterparts, ITC is conducting feasibility studies to identify potential candidate regions.

1. Getting to know community members, Myanmar ©Nutchanat Singhapooti 2. Tasting traditional Kayah wine, Myanmar 3. Children in Kayah state, Myanmar ©ITC/Peter Richards

Funder

The Netherlands

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International tourists in Kayah state

2014 2016140%


CASE STUDY

Increased sales for exporters and higher prices for farmers in Kenya’s avocado sector

The challenge

Trade can be an important driver of higher sales, incomes and job creation for the agriculture sector in developing countries. For farmers, getting a better price for their production translates into more money in their household budget for food, health and education, as well as for investments in higher yields and quality. For local agribusiness companies, increased export sales can mean higher revenues they can in turn reinvest in moving up the value chain through processing or targeting high-value market niches.

But for farmers in Kenya, even those who grow foods as internationally coveted as avocados, capturing the value from the steady growth in global demand is not straightforward.

Kenyan avocado farmers traditionally sell their fruits directly to local brokers. These brokers then sell them on to domestic exporting companies. These firms, many of which are small or medium-sized, in turn sell the avocados to international trading companies operating out of the port city of Mombasa. Only then are the avocados shipped abroad, destined for supermarket shelves.

Farmers sell to brokers on a one-off basis, often at low prices. The general absence of enduring, multi-year relationships with purchasers means that farmers are left with little understanding about market requirements wherever their avocados might end up. Farmers therefore have little incentive to invest in greater quality, nor do they get financial support to do so.

This business model has downsides for SME exporters too. Because the fruit that they purchase from brokers is often of middling quality, they can only sell into lower-value markets or market segments in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. And since these firms do not have a direct link to farmers, they cannot easily invest in improved production methods.

To tap into the most lucrative market niches – such as major European supermarket chains – avocados need to be formally certified for quality. The most prevalent certification for the European market is a private standard called

GLOBALG.A.P., which sets out requirements for farming processes and food safety. Complying – and proving compliance – with the requirements of such standards requires farmers and companies to spend time and money. Obtaining GLOBALG.A.P certification, however, opens doors for Kenyan SMEs to build long-lasting relationships with trading firms that sell to higher-end retailers in Europe and offer consistently higher prices.

The response

To help Kenyan farmers and companies alike reap greater gains from avocado production and exports, ITC first worked with SMEs in the avocado sector to help them understand the advantages of altering their business model: purchasing directly from farmers instead of from brokers would give them greater control over supply quality, in turn paving the way for sales to more lucrative markets.

In addition, ITC helped the SMEs connect to new international buyers and better understand their needs and requirements by organizing business-to-business (B2B) meetings with trading firms and facilitating participation in major international trade fairs, such as Fruit Logistica in Berlin and World of Perishables in Dubai. It also provided the firms with advisory services on marketing and branding.

In parallel, ITC worked with a local agronomist in Muranga County north of Nairobi, one of the country’s biggest avocado-producing regions, to map out 10 groups of farmers and foster direct links between them and 10 SMEs. These direct links were formalized in 2016 through contractual letters with each farmers group, setting up guaranteed prices for fruit delivered the following season. As part of the arrangements, the SMEs pledged investments in improving production quality and sustainability in return for supply loyalty.

Given the importance of standards in the avocado market – which was underscored to the SMEs by their meetings with European buyers in Berlin – ITC trained 314 farmers and all 10 SMEs on how to meet GLOBALG.A.P requirements.

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The results

In 2014, when the project started, the Kenyan avocado exporters associated with the project reported exports totalling 6,143 tons. This figure reached 9,334 tons the following year and 12,141 tons in 2016 , representing a 98% increase over the two-year period. Thanks to the new business connections with international trading firms facilitated by the project, SMEs reported 90 new orders during that time, mainly from traders selling into the European market.

Higher sales have meant greater job creation at the companies as they hired 49 permanent and 508 casual workers in 2016, a 128% increase from the year before.

Meanwhile, for the farmers, cutting brokers out of the process has already translated into higher and more predictable prices for their avocados. As per the contracts signed with the SME exporters in 2016, the farmers will, in the upcoming growing season, be paid prices three times higher than what they used to receive from their one-off sales to brokers. Some of this price premium will go towards

harvesting and collecting the fruit, a task that used to be done by brokers. The farmers groups have already hired 102 new permanent and 187 casual workers to take on these new responsibilities.

In response to higher revenues and growing customer demand, some of the Kenyan exporting companies have invested in expanding and upgrading their packing facilities, adding cold rooms, grading and cleaning machines and pack houses to cope with the business growth. They have also invested in the farmers groups, helping them build sheds, storage and other physical infrastructures that will help improve quality and meet GLOBALG.A.P requirements.

ITC’s GLOBALG.A.P training for farmers groups and SMEs has progressed well: production processes have been brought into line with the certification’s requirements. The project supported audits for the farmers groups in late 2016 and early 2017 and the 10 groups expect to receive formal certification in time for the 2017 growing season.

The future

All 10 exporting companies are planning to scale up the approach, investing in additional farmers groups and leveraging certification to expand their position in European market.

Similar work by ITC in 2016 led to 35% growth in international sales volumes for eight Senegalese mango exporters. ITC will continue to build upon this work by facilitating the participation of fruit and vegetable producers from countries such as Ukraine at top industry trade fairs in the Middle East and Europe.

1. Avocados, Kenya 2.–4. Kenyan avocado farmers working with the NTFIII project

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Funder

The Netherlands

Avocado exports for participating companies

2014

6 143 tons

2016

12 141 tons

2015

9 334 tons


ITC INNOVATES

Alliances for a more competitive Caribbean coconut industry

The challenge

Smallholder farmers in many developing countries struggle to connect to national, regional and international value chains even when the crops they grow are in high demand. This is evident in the Caribbean coconut sector. Over the past five years, changing consumer health and wellness preferences have spurred a boom in global demand for products like coconut water and coconut oil. The global market for coconut water alone was estimated at $1.3 billion in 2014 and is projected to more than triple by 2019.

Yet coconut farmers across the Caribbean too frequently cannot derive a sustainable livelihood from their crop. Years of low returns at the village level – in part a function of poor physical and commercial links to markets exacerbated by then-falling global prices – gave them little incentive to invest in coconut production. The result of prolonged underinvestment has been ageing plantations that are vulnerable to pests and plant disease, a recipe for weak supply capacity and an inability to compete with producers in Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Overcoming these supply and coordination weaknesses and connecting Caribbean smallholders, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and large companies to booming markets that offer high returns on coconut products would improve livelihoods across the region.

The solution

Given the array of different factors impeding the competitiveness of the Caribbean coconut sector, rectifying the gaps demands simultaneous action across multiple fronts. ITC, in partnership with the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), is working with stakeholders at every step of the value chain – from farmers and micro-scale processors through to international buyers, government ministries and research institutions – in

Belize, Dominica, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Guyana, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago to foster cooperative, mutually supportive responses to market needs. The project is part of a European Union-funded ‘intra-ACP’ programme that seeks to promote increased trade, value-addition and production across the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States.

In practice, this means facilitating cooperation among value chain stakeholders to leverage the required investment as well as technical and policy support. This has involved, for example, training farmers in agricultural techniques and business skills; enhancing the capability of SME processors to meet international health and safety standards; and introducing waste-reducing, efficiency-increasing lean production methods.

The project is also working to upgrade the capacity of support institutions, from lenders to agricultural research and extension services; to build market linkages to buyers; and to other value chains in the region, such as tourism. The ultimate objective is to translate higher competitiveness and better business capabilities into more favourable terms of trade, higher value capture and increased incomes for small-scale farmers and processors.

In the nine participating countries, the project has created national coconut sector platforms to improve stakeholder coordination. In partnership with Duke University’s Center on Globalization, Governance and Competitiveness, the project partners have analysed the coconut value chain worldwide to identify market opportunities and consumer trends, as well as competitiveness gaps. Based on this analysis, stakeholders have developed national roadmaps for the development of the sector.

In addition, to supplement farmers’ incomes in the five to eight years needed to fully rehabilitate or expand coconut plantations, the project is supporting farmers to intercrop coconut trees with faster-growing plantain, banana or cocoa

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to diversify income streams and decrease their exposure to market and environmental risks.

Under the project’s implementation approach, dubbed Alliances for Action, ITC, CARDI and national stakeholders have built on the sector roadmaps to identify specific geographic areas where coconut farmers and the processors they work with have considerable potential to connect to international value chains. In these areas, local business alliances are being set up to link farmers to local and international buyers as well as to national institutions that can help build capacity. The project partners will deliver an integrated package of technical assistance to farmers, processors and support institutions, who are guiding the process of identifying key constraints and working together to solve problems along the value chain. In addition to facilitating the work of this multi-stakeholder platform, ITC is working with international buyers both to source from the Caribbean and to invest in the development of the region’s coconut value chain.

The future

ITC will continue to broker interactions and build networks among farmers, processors, national and international support institutions, interested buyers and potential investors with the aim of drawing in more partners to support inclusive rural development.

Through the Alliances for Action framework, ITC will work to build stakeholder capacity, secure investment and generate business to develop sustainable, inclusive and resilient value chains in the coconut sector across the Caribbean. The framework is designed to be replicated in other geographical areas and products – customized for local and product-specific needs – and is thus conducive to scaling up for broader impact.

Funder

European Union

1.–4. Coconut milk supply chain, Caribbean

The project partners will deliver an integrated package of technical assistance to farmers, processors and support institutions, who are guiding the process of identifying key constraints and working together to solve problems along the value chain.


U N S D G I T C

Promoting and Mainstreaming Inclusive and Green Trade

Empowering Women to Trade

The Empowering Women to Trade Programme contributes to the economic empowerment of women by increasing their participation in trade, raising the value of the international business they transact and diversifying the markets they access.

Key results

Commitments to connect 600 000 women entrepreneurs to market by 2020

$11 million in business leads for women-owned companies

Highlights

ITC’s SheTrades initiative continued to gain momentum in 2016, gathering pledges of support for women’s economic empowerment from leading governments and private institutions and connecting women entrepreneurs to potential business partners around the world (see case study).

Almost 100 institutions from Nigeria to India have signed up to the SheTrades initiative, making commitments to alter policy and practice to better enable women and the businesses they run to succeed in international markets. Total pledges as of the end of 2016 would connect 600,000 women entrepreneurs to market by 2020 – already 60% of

the way to the initiative’s target of one million. One such pledge came from Barclays Bank Kenya, which has set up a $50 million credit facility for enterprises owned or run by women. It will work with ITC to equip 10,000 local women entrepreneurs with new skills and connect them to international trade opportunities by 2020. In addition, the Nigerian Export Promotion Council has pledged to work with governments, banks, companies and other stakeholders to connect 200,000 women to markets by 2020.

Local trade and investment support institutions (TISIs) continued to be essential multipliers for the programme’s work. ITC built on efforts to reinforce TISIs’ ability to support women entrepreneurs and help them connect to markets. In the State of Palestine, for example, ITC partnered closely with the Business Women’s Forum (BWF); the institution’s improved client-service capacity and track record for effectiveness enabled it to win a $800,000 tender from UN Women to deliver support to women-owned businesses. In Vanuatu, ITC helped establish the first women exporters’ association, supporting indigenous handicraft makers to improve their production and business skills for the products they market.

In 2016, ITC efforts to connect women entrepreneurs to markets, including through the SheTrades networking and business matchmaking app, generated trade leads worth $11 million. These include $5.2 million in potential deals secured by women from Rwanda, the United Republic of Tanzania, and Uganda through ITC-facilitated participation in important coffee industry trade fairs such as the Specialty Coffee Association of Japan (SCAJ), where suppliers from Rwanda agreed on $500,000 worth of sales for the 2017 growing season.

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In the textiles and garments sector, ITC received support from technical experts from the Parsons School of Design in New York to prepare aspiring women entrepreneurs from Mongolia, Ethiopia, Ghana and India to attend leading trade fairs such as Coterie in New York and the International Textile Fair in Dubai. The resulting leads for their businesses totalled $4.3 million.

Empowering Poor Communities to Trade

The Empowering Poor Communities to Trade Programme aims to create sustainable income opportunities for marginalized communities by connecting them to international markets. It fosters market-driven connections and helps micro-scale producers, often in the informal sector, add value to goods and services in supply chains from fashion and agribusiness to tourism and business process outsourcing.

Key results

216% increase in income for artisans in Haiti

400% increase in income for artisans in Burkina Faso and Mali

Production hubs connected to 35 international and 19 local buyers

Highlights

In 2016, the Ethical Fashion Initiative focused on implementing activities in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Haiti, Kenya and Mali, with a continued emphasis on investing in technical training to develop the skills of artisans to meet the demanding standards of the global fashion industry.

In Haiti, ITC brought master hat-makers from Ecuador, a country famed for its traditional woven hats, to share their knowledge with artisans – all of whom were women. The women are now selling hats to three United States-based brands: Tucker, Yestadt Millinery and Yanvalou Designs. This triangular collaboration, drawing on Southern expertise and Northern markets, helped the Haitian hat-makers achieve a six-fold increase in their incomes. Overall, artisans associated with EFI projects in Haiti, producing jewellery and accessories in addition to hats, saw their incomes rise by 216%.

In Burkina Faso and Mali, 729 micro-producers of handwoven textiles received training on quality control and product development, enabling them in 2016 to more than double the amount of fabric produced for export.

In Ethiopia, leather artisans in the capital city, Addis Ababa, were trained in shoe-making and chromium-free leather production. In 2016, the artisans produced 2,800 pairs of shoes for Brother Vellies, a New York-based brand, and Camper, a Spanish shoe company. Camper launched its first collection with the Ethical Fashion Initiative in May.

Brands such as Vivienne Westwood, Stella McCartney, Karen Walker, United Arrows and Mimco renewed orders with the Ethical Fashion Initiative in 2016. Several new international designers and buyers joined the network, creating new export opportunities in Haiti and Africa. These included EDUN, Alice + Olivia, Mimi Plange x Roche Bobois, Sindiso Khumalo and Brooklyn Circus. Pop-up stores and participation in fashion industry and government events in New York, Florence, Port-au-Prince and Brussels also helped the Ethical Fashion Initiative spread awareness about its work and impact.

1. Women in Vanuatu working with the Women Exporters Association 2. SheTrades and the Specialty Coffee Association of Japan work together at the coffee trade fair, Japan

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1. Coterie trade fair in textiles and garments for women entrepreneurs, New York 2. Ethical Fashion Initiative: shoe-making, for Camper, Ethiopia

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ITC launched a new area of work involving migrants and asylum-seekers in Italy. In partnership with Lai-momo, an Italian social cooperative that runs welcome centres for asylum-seekers, ITC has supported the creation of a vocational training programme in leather bag-making near Bologna. Trainees will be able to put the fashion sector skills they acquire to use either in resettlement countries or in their countries of origin.

Finally, in the Pacific region, ITC connected Australia-based designers with associations of traditional weavers of bilum in Papua New Guinea and vegetable fibres in Vanuatu. Through this training, the teams developed handbag concepts, beach hats and jewellery for export to the Australian market. Orders to Australia started in 2016 and are set to be delivered on schedule. Sales of Pacific crafts at the Gallery of Modern Arts in Brisbane has opened the door to additional marketing partnerships.

Youth and Trade

The Youth and Trade Programme takes a market-led approach to enabling young entrepreneurs to build skills and connect to international value chains in order to create more and better employment opportunities for youth. Through roadmaps for identifying constraints and opportunities, accelerators offering a range of trade-facilitating services to youth-owned start-ups and support for building a more favourable policy environment, the programme fosters market-oriented skills while connecting young entrepreneurs to market players at home and abroad.

Key results

12 youth-owned SMEs working with trade accelerator in Morocco

Highlights

In Morocco, ITC has, together with the L’Association Marocaine des Exportateurs (ASMEX) and the Ministry of External Trade, set up a pilot trade accelerator to help 12 youth-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) go international. The young entrepreneurs behind the companies report better market understanding and business contacts in the European Union as well as in non-traditional markets such as sub-Saharan Africa.

Thanks in part to the accelerator, Rhizlane El Alaoui, whose company developed a mobile application that lets people exchange contact information electronically instead of through business cards, received official rights for the United Nations 2016 climate conference (COP22) in Marrakesh. This resulted in a sharp uptick in visibility and use. Ms. Alaoui’s company’s app, called Easyshair, is available now on Apple and Android platforms.

In Liberia, where ITC has supported the development of a National Export Strategy as well as sector-specific strategies to boost trade performance, economic diversification and job creation, the rubberwood furniture sector has been singled out as holding significant potential for youth employment. The strategy for the sector identifies challenges for young people attempting to enter rubberwood furniture production as well as constraints on youth employability such as inadequate woodworking and business skills. It also points to opportunities for young people to receive on-the-job training within existing enterprises as well as guidance and support for starting their own companies in the sector.

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3. Ethical Fashion Initiative: Refugees at the Lai-Momo Training Centre ©ITC/Ingrid Colonna 4. Shea butter production for The Body Shop, Ghana 5. Training local associations in climate-resilient raffia cultivation and processing, Madagascar

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Trade and Environment

The Trade and Environment Programme aims to strengthen the competitiveness of developing country SMEs in green economy markets. Through capacity building, trade intelligence and market connections, it uses international demand to create incentives for better environmental practice while improving livelihoods in marginalized rural communities.

Key results

Higher prices and better market access for

1 800 Peruvian cocoa smallholders

Aynok’a community brand launched to help Peruvian cooperatives capture price premiums for organic quinoa

Highlights

In Peru, ITC supported eight cocoa-producing SMEs and cooperatives representing over 1,800 smallholder farmers to improve harvest and post-harvest treatment techniques, marketing and branding, with the goal of increasing sales and expanding incentives to grow indigenous cocoa varieties. Six Peruvian companies received ITC training on sustainable branding, marketing and packaging; two of them have already switched completely to recyclable packaging.

Also in Peru, ITC trained eight quinoa-growing SMEs and cooperatives representing 1,519 smallholder farmers on quality control systems for organic production. Two of the eight cooperatives received organic certification, paving the way for lucrative price premiums in export markets; four

were certified in Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP), a start-to-end food safety management system that can be essential for accessing certain markets.

A new ITC publication, Trade in Quinoa: The Impact on the Welfare of Peruvian Communities, used survey data to demonstrate that rising quinoa prices had improved rural household welfare and nutrition and that the recent fall in prices had done the opposite. In line with the report’s recommendation for Peruvian producers to seek profitable market niches, ITC contributed to the development and launch of the brand Aynok’a, under which six cooperatives will export organic quinoa.

In Ghana, ITC implemented a pilot project with The Body Shop International to improve the sustainability and competitiveness of producers from 11 communities in the shea value chain and to set out guiding principles for the international shea market on sustainable sourcing and production practices.

In Madagascar, ITC worked with seven local associations to train 275 women in the Makira Natural Park area on climate resilient cultivation and processing of raffia, a palm fibre used to make handicrafts and rope. They also learned design techniques and business skills aimed at supplying raffia hats to the international luxury sector.

2016 Funders

Core funders



Australia, Enhanced Integrated Framework, Germany, Japan, SDG Fund, Switzerland, Trademark East Africa, United Kingdom, United States



1.–3. Employees of SweetNDried, a producer of mango snacks, Kenya

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In partnership with Kering group and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), ITC worked to raise awareness of sustainable sourcing and governance practices for python skins, which are used in high-end leather goods. Two ITC publications highlighted the socioeconomic benefits of sustainable python trade in Malaysia and Vietnam.

ITC published Environmental Mainstreaming: Guidance for Project Managers, which spells out how to integrate environmental considerations into aid for trade projects both within ITC and in the broader development community.

ITC multiplier effects: Building lean production expertise in Kenya

Since 2014, ITC has partnered with Bosch, the German engineering and electronics firm, to train Kenyan SMEs in so-called ‘lean’ production methodologies, through a project funded by Finland.’ Pioneered by Japanese automakers, lean manufacturing refers to the continuous, methodical reform of firms’ supply chain processes to strip out waste and inefficiencies such as unnecessary movement or waiting. Over the past three years, training workshops with ITC and Bosch have taught SMEs to analyse and adjust their production processes. Simple adjustments – such as weighing honey jars while filling them, instead of weighing them individually after scooping honey into each jar; or shifting from ‘batch’ production with all workers performing the same sequence of tasks to ‘continuous flow’ processing with a division of labour – led to dramatic increases in production efficiency, reduced lead times and lower defect rates, all without requiring major investments in expensive new equipment.

Representatives from a local partner, the Kenya Institute of Supplies Management (KISM), started out by attending the ITC-Bosch training sessions as learners. The KISM team has transitioned to delivering the lean training, analysis and advisory services alongside ITC, without participation by experts from Bosch. The results remain impressive. For SweetNDried, a producer of mango snacks, lean training, together with a key health and safety certification, have led to sharp increases in

production volumes, quality and employment. Production efficiency has doubled, customer returns have been eliminated, and sales have increased substantially. In 2014 the company purchased two tons of raw mangoes from 75 local farmers; in 2016, it bought to over 40 tons, generating business for 245 farmers in the area around Chuka Town, four hours from Nairobi.

Bosch remains involved with project, and in 2016 worked with ITC and KISM to deliver training to three SMEs, with similar results. Importantly, lean advisory services have now been added to KISM’s portfolio of services for SMEs in Kenya and the East African Community. ITC will provide short-term support to KISM where needed as it evolves towards an independent, sustainable funding model for providing these advisory services to regional institutions and businesses.


CASE STUDY

SheTrades: Empowering women entrepreneurs in international markets

The challenge

Over the past century, women around the world have taken dramatic strides forward in voting rights, in social status and as economic actors. And yet they remain less likely than men to have a paid job and when they do they earn less than men in similar occupations. Gender-based legal impediments and job restrictions too often confine women to low-paying work in the informal sector. Women are 20% less likely than men to have a bank account and less likely than men to belong to formal business networks.

In addition to the consequences for individual girls, women and families, these inequalities have an immense economic cost: by some estimates, achieving gender equality in the economy would add as much as one-quarter to global GDP. The Sustainable Development Goals rightly recognize that eradicating extreme poverty is impossible without substantial progress towards gender equality in the home, the school and the workplace.

The response

Despite the enormous potential gains for families, businesses and countries, the barriers to women’s economic empowerment are numerous and substantial. Breaking them down requires a combination of mutually reinforcing government policy, private-sector action and social change. ITC created the SheTrades initiative to provide a framework and platform for partners to work together to empower women economically.

Launched in 2015, the initiative was the outcome of months of consultations with stakeholders around the world aimed at accelerating the trajectory towards eradicating extreme poverty by 2030. The consultations revealed that a key challenge to achieving gender equality was the persistence of silos between the various actors working in this area as well as between substantive factors underlying women’s

ability to start and run successful businesses, including research, policy, finance and access to markets.

The SheTrades initiative set out to break down the barriers between those silos and provide a comprehensive action plan for women’s economic empowerment through trade. Its overarching goal is to connect one million women entrepreneurs to markets by 2020. To this end, it sets out seven global actions to address obstacles to trade and expand opportunities for women entrepreneurs while inviting governments, companies, trade and investment support institutions and civil society entities across the globe to make specific, verifiable pledges to:

1. collect, analyse and disseminate data on women’s economic participation;

2. create trade policies and agreements that enhance women’s participation in trade;

3. empower women-owned businesses to participate in public procurement spending;

4. create corporate procurement programmes that embed diversity and inclusion in value chains;

5. address supply-side constraints that especially affect women-owned businesses;

6. close the gap between men and women for accessing financial services; and

7. ensure legislative and administrative reforms guarantee women’s rights to ownership and control over resources.

The SheTrades initiative set out to break down the barriers between those silos and provide a comprehensive action plan for women’s economic empowerment through trade.

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1. Rose Saitabao, Managing Director, Asilia Safaris, Kenya 2. Origin Africa 2016 Trade Show, Madagascar

A SheTrades web and mobile application – itself created by a woman-owned firm from Kenya that won a global tech challenge organized by ITC, Google and Brazilian company CI&T – allows women entrepreneurs to network; showcase their products and services; and connect to potential buyers around the world.

The results

As of December 2016, partners had pledged to connect 600,000 women to markets – well on the way to achieving the initiative’s 2020 goal.

The initiative has received ringing endorsements – and more importantly, commitments – from a growing number of

Facilitating international business deals for women entrepreneurs

Marie Laetitia Kayitesire owns and manages Sake Farm, a coffee plantation and washing station on the shores of Lake Sake in eastern Rwanda. The farm processes and sells the coffee it grows but also that grown by 1,500 small-scale family farms in the vicinity.

Through the SheTrades initiative, Laetitia, who is an active member of the Rwanda chapter of the International Women’s Coffee Alliance, has taken part in buyer mentor groups with international coffee importers and roasters providing training on quality, buyer requirements and how to negotiate sales. She has also attended B2B events with potential buyers. At one such gathering, a Specialty Coffee Association of Europe event held in Dublin in June 2016, Laetitia established a relationship with the European branch of InterAmerican Coffee, an importer of top-quality green coffee tied to German major Neumanns Kaffee Gruppe. This led to a sale of 19 tons (320 bags or 1 standard shipping container) of coffee, worth $95,000. The $5 per kilogram price was almost double the $2.67 average for Rwandan coffee in 2016.

‘This sale was very good for me because the price was excellent and will help me be profitable,’ Laetitia said. Sake Farm had also benefited from an ITC-facilitated partnership with Rwacof, the Rwandan unit of Geneva-based coffee merchant Sucafina, with which ITC cooperates on gender-focused coffee supply chain work.

Rwacof operates processing facilities – so-called ‘dry mills’ – for the final stages of producing and packing green coffee for export. According to Laetitia, Rwacof’s quality of cleaning and grading is superior to that of other processors Sake Farm had contracted in the past. Rwacof also serves as a source of market information and cheaper finance than what she can obtain at local banks. For Sake Farm and other coffee producers, Rwacof serves as a buyer of last resort in case they cannot strike a more favourable deal with another international buyer – thus enhancing income security for producers and supply security for Sucafina.

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3. First Lady of Rwanda, Jeannette Kagame, at Coterie trade fair, New York 4. SheTrades partnership with Barclays Kenya 5. SheTrades launch in Kenya

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decision-makers, institutions and women entrepreneurs. In July, the Nigerian Export Promotion Council pledged to work with governments, banks, companies and other stakeholders to connect 200,000 women to markets by 2020. The same month, Barclays Bank of Kenya and ITC launched a partnership to train 10,000 local women entrepreneurs in financial and business skills and to connect them to international trade opportunities. More than 1,400 Kenyan women entrepreneurs have already benefitted from this partnership, which complements the bank’s 5 billion-Kenyan-shilling ($50 million) credit facility fund for enterprises owned or run by women.

Trade and investment promotion organizations are actively engaging with SheTrades. Apex-Brasil, Brazil’s trade promotion agency, in March set up a new ‘Empowering women entrepreneurs through exports’ programme committed to connecting 6,000 women entrepreneurs to international markets by 2018. The programme has already reached out to 1,360 women-led companies, organizing close to 200 business-to-business (B2B) meetings that have facilitated $7.8 million worth of new leads.

Chile’s public procurement system, one of over 100 SheTrades partners, is working to enable women entrepreneurs to supply a higher share of government purchasing. ChileCompra has already served 15,000 women entrepreneurs and has committed to working with an additional 25,000 women suppliers under the SheTrades framework.

In three members of the Indian Ocean Rim Association – Indonesia, Kenya, and Sri Lanka – ITC is working to enhance the competitiveness of women-owned SMEs in

sectors such as information technology and tourism and help them connect to international markets.

As of the end of 2016, over 4,600 companies had registered on the SheTrades app and started to access e-courses, online mentoring sessions, webinars and targeted information on topics such as negotiation skills and market analysis. The app is regularly updated to add new functionalities, such as a tracking system for the commitments made by SheTrades signatories.

The SheTrades platform gives women-owned businesses opportunities to participate in various trade fairs and exhibitions. In 2016, participation in such events, in sectors ranging from coffee to tourism, led to business leads worth a reported $11 million. Some of these leads have already turned into reality (see box).

The future

The SheTrades app will be made available in more languages – starting with Spanish and French – and additional computer and smartphone operating systems to make it more accessible to businesswomen and buyers around the world.

ITC will seek partners in establishing SheTrades Centres of Excellence in regional hubs around the world, which will draw in support from the local ecosystem of enabling stakeholders – from banks to logistics and telecommunications companies – needed to transform business prospects for women entrepreneurs.

Funders

Australia, Canada, China, Finland, Germany, India, Ireland, Sweden, United Kingdom


CASE STUDY

Empowering hat-makers in Haiti through ethical fashion

The challenge

ITC’s Ethical Fashion Initiative (EFI) has since 2009 served as a bridge between some of the world’s poorest communities and some of its most prominent fashion brands, building skills and creating decent jobs for people from Burkina Faso to Haiti while delivering authenticity and artisanship to a growing network of companies such as Vivienne Westwood and Mimco.

International clients have in recent years approached the EFI requesting artisanal hat-making skills.

In Haiti, there is a long tradition of hat-making as a supplement to agricultural income by women who weave at home and pass their skills down from one generation to the next. Often women who are widowed will specialize in hat-making to provide for their families.

The EFI set out in 2016 to find hat-makers to work with, making enquiries in Port-au-Prince and tourist areas outside of the city that ultimately led to a community of women hat-makers around the small village of Labiche near Côtes-de-Fer in the country’s south.

But while the hats they made were more than adequate for tourists, they fell short of the exacting standards of international hat-makers: the hats varied substantially in quality, in part a function of the fact that the women worked on their own rather than in a group.

The response

After assessing interest among roughly 100 hat-makers, ITC organized the 20 most motivated artisans into a cooperative, enabling more standardized production. The next step was to focus on improving the quality of hat-making through technical training.

First, Molly Yestadt, a New York-based hat-maker, travelled to the EFI’s Port-au-Prince hub to train the collective on straw quality, workability and cleanliness. She also gave a demonstration on blocking and forming techniques for shaping hats.

Next, the EFI developed a partnership with an Ecuadorian hat-making school, Escuela Taller Pile, from a region renowned for the country’s woven straw hats, better known as Panama hats, which have been classified by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as part of humanity’s intangible cultural heritage. As part of this South-South cooperation, skilled artisans from the school came to Haiti and shared technical knowledge on fibre treatment, hat-weaving and hat-finishing.

A new quality control system was put in place under which the 20 women worked in groups of three or four. A leader from each group reports to a weaver in charge of quality control, who in turn reports to the EFI hub in Port-au-Prince, which is responsible for customer relations, production management and final quality control checks for all items produced in the country.

In addition, the EFI team provided technical expertise and quality control feedback, investing in hat-making tools and developing the Haitian artisans’ ability to decipher technical design sheets.

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The results

Since the hat-makers in Labiche started working with ITC, they have produced hats for three fashion brands – Tucker, Yestadt Millinery and Yanvalou Designs, three brands based in the United States. In the process, they have increased their incomes six-fold, from about 50 Haitian gourdes (or less than $1) to 300 Haitian gourdes (about $4.40) per day.

The future

The principal aim is to strengthen existing partnerships and connect new United States and European buyers to the hat-making communities to generate greater sales, incomes and jobs. The expansion strategy also seeks to build links to the region’s tourism industry; the cruise company Royal Caribbean, for example, has expressed interest in purchasing mid-range hats for their customers.

Meeting increased demand will require improvements to the production capacities of the Haitian hat-makers. The EFI team will organize additional technical training and put in place processes to ensure that improved quality control practices continue to be implemented.

Funder

United States

1. Brother Vellies in Haiti ©ITC/Marie Arago 2. Ethical Fashion Initiative in Haiti ©ITC/Marie Arago 3. Yanvalou Production in Haiti ©ITC/Marie Arago 4. Yestadt Production in Haiti © ITC/Marie Arago

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Income growth for hat-makers in Labiche

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50 after

300Haitian gourdes per day

Haitian gourdes per day


ITC INNOVATES

Using trade to create jobs and build skills for refugees

The challenge

The worldwide number of refugees, persons displaced within their own countries and asylum-seekers exceeds 65 million. This number is higher than at any time since the aftermath of the Second World War.

Moreover, circumstances have changed dramatically since the international policy architecture for refugees was set up in the post-war period. Instead of relatively rapid resettlement, the average stay in a refugee camp now exceeds 17 years by some estimates.

The magnitude of the crisis is testing the economic resilience of host countries. In fact, the largest recipients of refugees are developing countries, which are often not substantially richer than the places from where refugees came.

For those displaced, particularly the young, options are limited. Humanitarian agencies have traditionally provided literacy and vocational training such as tailoring, carpentry and more recently, information technology. Though useful, this work has not typically prioritized linking skills to market-based income generation opportunities. In protracted refugee situations, the traditional support mix of food, shelter and vocational training no longer suffices. Without skills that are linked to income opportunities, refugees remain trapped in dependency and are less well-equipped to integrate into the economic mainstream, whether at home or in a resettlement country.

Trade can play a useful role in generating market-based income opportunities. Advances in telecommunications – above all internet access – allow people and businesses in refugee settings to connect to overseas customers and earn sustainable livelihoods. In fact, connecting small and medium-sized businesses to international markets can create work for host country nationals alongside refugees, contributing to growth and resilience in host communities.

The solution

ITC has been working with a variety of partners to build tools and market connections that would enable refugees and asylum-seekers in multiple locations to earn incomes by connecting to international markets.

ITC teamed up with design students from Hyper Island, a digital-focused business school; innovation consultancy Common Good; and Freeman XP, a branding agency; to develop a concept for a mobile application that would enable talented refugees to perform translation, data entry, transcription and other digital services for overseas clients.

The result was a prototype app, dubbed Uable, which connects multilingual refugees with businesses that need translation services. The app will enable refugees to convert skills into incomes and better opportunities in the future. For companies, it will provide fast, competitively priced and secure crowdsourced services, together with a chance to engage in meaningful impact-sourcing.

The app design allows for offline usage – i.e. connecting only to download new tasks and upload completed documents – as a way to deal with spotty or expensive internet access.

The team has successfully tested an early prototype of the app through real-life transactions for English-to-French translations by residents of Nakivale, a camp in southeastern Uganda that is home to refugees from

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Without skills that are linked to income opportunities, refugees remain trapped in dependency and are less well-equipped to integrate into the economic mainstream, whether at home or in a resettlement country.


countries including Burundi, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Payments were processed through the M-pesa mobile money system.

In parallel to these preliminary initiatives to connect refugees to international markets, ITC is also working to support migrants (including asylum-seekers) in Europe to develop vocational skills that will help them eventually reintegrate into their countries of origin. In the town of Lama di Reno, near Bologna, Italy, ITC is working with Lai-momo, an Italian organization that works with asylum-seekers, to train migrants in leather bag making and textile skills for the fashion industry. The programme started in July; 18 people from Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Pakistan and Senegal participated in the stitching, basic bag manufacturing, gluing and pattern classes. This technical training is accompanied by instruction in Italian and mathematics. Trainees will be able to put the skills they acquire to use in the fashion sector, either in Europe or in their countries of origin.

The future

The next step for the Uable app is to develop and test the platform further and facilitate commercial-scale business for refugees in Uganda, for example, or internally displaced persons in Colombia and Ecuador. Developing partnerships with local offices of UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, and non-governmental organizations would make it possible to complement the roll-out with training in digital skills. The ultimate goal is to spin off the platform as an autonomous social enterprise which can expand globally

and offer more sophisticated back-office information technology-enabled services including business process and knowledge process outsourcing.

As for the fashion training for asylum-seekers in Italy, there is considerable potential to replicate this model elsewhere in Europe. After repatriation, former trainees could receive support to join the artisanal sector in their countries of origin, where their skills would enable them to play the role of innovators, trainers, mentors or entrepreneurs who raise the quality of production. In some countries – notably Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Mali, and Kenya – former asylum-seekers could be connected to EFI hubs and their far-reaching network of fashion and lifestyle buyers.

Funders


1. Visiting a refugee skills-training centre, Nairobi 2. Refugees learning computer skills at a training centre, Nairobi 3. Lai-Momo training centre for refugees ©ITC/Ingrid Colonna 4. Refugees sculpting wooden figures, Nairobi

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Boosting Regional Trade

The Boosting Regional Trade Programme works with governments and the private sector to increase the participation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from developing and transition economies in regional trade and investment.

Key Results

$1 million in exports by Kenyan mango companies

Highlights

In 2016, ITC continued to support regional integration efforts in Africa in line with the African Union’s Action Plan for Boosting Intra-African Trade. As part of a multi-year Promoting Intraregional Trade in Eastern Africa Project, ITC worked to increase the export competitiveness of SMEs from Kenya, the United Republic of Tanzania, and Zambia in selected regional agri-food value chains. Top priorities included equipping the SMEs to meet international quality and food safety standards and improve their supply chain management, branding and marketing. Market connections facilitated by ITC at a trade fair in Dubai enabled seven Kenyan companies to sell $1 million worth of mangoes, mainly to the Middle East.

In Algeria, Lebanon and Oman, ITC worked to improve the ability and effectiveness of trade and investment support institutions (TISIs) to boost intraregional trade. A feasibility study

to establish a trade promotion fund was launched in Kuwait.

In addition, ITC launched the Arab Countries Trade and Investment Organizations Network (ACTION) during the Trade Promotion Organizations (TPO) Network World Conference and Awards in Marrakesh, Morocco, in November 2016. ITC also continued implementing a project to improve data collection on non-tariff measures (NTMs) to serve the needs of businesses, trade institutions and policymakers. A guidebook on Jordan’s customs procedures is to serve as a template for future country-specific guides in the region.

South-South Trade and Investment

The South-South Trade and Investment Programme promotes commercial linkages among emerging economies, developing countries and least developed countries (LDCs) with a focus on enhancing value-added trade; investment and technology transfer connections between SMEs; and emerging-market buyers and investors.

Key results

$60 million in investment and trade deals under negotiation among companies from China, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Rwanda, Singapore, United Republic of Tanzania and Uganda

$15 million in international orders for pulses from Ethiopia, Kenya and the United Republic of Tanzania

U N S D G I T C

Supporting Regional Economic Integration and South-South Links

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Highlights

The Supporting Indian Trade and Investment for Africa (SITA) project has continued to foster trade and investment ties among companies in eastern Africa, India and beyond. In 2016, 33 companies from Ethiopia, Kenya and the United Republic of Tanzania were executing orders for pulses and spices worth approximately $15 million with buyers from India, Singapore and Turkey. An Indian investor in Rwanda has introduced new chilli varieties in the country with the goal of producing for export. Other investment deals under negotiation include sunflower oil production in the United Republic of Tanzania, leather tanning and shoe manufacturing in Uganda and garment production in Ethiopia.

Business connections fostered by ITC through the project have yielded 28 Memorandums of Understanding and partnership and non-disclosure agreements in the internet-enabled business process outsourcing sector. The Rwandan government has endorsed a feasibility study on setting up an export credit guarantee scheme in partnership with the Export Import Bank of India and ITC; it would be part of a broader Export Growth Fund to provide financing for small and medium-sized exporters from Rwanda.

In five Asian LDCs (Bangladesh, Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Nepal) ITC organized training workshops on ‘How to Export to China,’ backed by a guidebook on Chinese market standards and requirements. More than 100 SMEs attended the workshops, with 95% of participants indicating that the training achieved its goal. Together with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, ITC in October 2016 published ‘E-Commerce in China: Opportunities for Asian Firms.’ The report will serve as the basis for future joint research and capacity building work supporting SMEs in Asia, especially in LDCs, to increase their competitiveness and sales in China.

The initial ‘scoping’ phase of the Partnership for Investment and Growth in Africa (PIGA, see ITC Innovates) project saw some 20 Chinese companies initiate business discussions

on investment in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique and Zambia. Close to 200 Chinese companies have improved their understanding of the business environment and investment opportunities in the four African countries. The PIGA project implementation framework was validated by national stakeholders in September, paving the way for a transition to full-fledged implementation.

Other ITC initiatives also fostered South-South trade and investment links. One such project increased incomes for Zambian cotton farmers while expanding sales to southern Africa (see case study). Another extended the supply networks of Tunisian textile and clothing companies to Egypt (see case study) as part of bolstering the firms’ international competitiveness.

1. SITA business process analysis workshop, Kenya 2. PIGA sensitization mission, Zambia 3. PIGA sensitization mission, Ethiopia

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2016 Funders

Core funders



China, Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA)/EU Regional Integration Support Mechanism (EU-RISM), European Union, Finland, International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation, The Netherlands, United Kingdom


CASE STUDY

Market power and value addition deliver income gains for Zambian cotton farmers

The challenge

African cotton farmers, such as those in Zambia, often struggle to eke out a reasonable living. There are three main reasons for this.

The first is low yields. Cotton yields in Africa are among the world’s lowest. Average yields in eastern and southern Africa stood at 238 kilograms per hectare in 2015-16 compared to 370 kg in western Africa and a global average of 693 kg per hectare.

The second is high price and weather risks. Every year, farmers decide whether or not to cultivate cotton based on price levels during the previous season. By the time the cotton is ready to harvest, however, prices may have changed quite dramatically. Moreover, cotton is vulnerable to drought and shifts in rainfall patterns.

Finally, market dynamics in many African countries are unfavourable for cotton farmers. The prices Zambian farmers receive for their seed-cotton – cotton fibres grow tightly intertwined with seeds – are among the lowest in Africa: in 2015-16, Zambian farmers were paid $0.30 per kg at the then-prevalent exchange rate as compared to the $0.43 per kg average received by farmers in Eastern and Southern Africa. In addition, the ginneries to which farmers sell their seed-cotton to separate the fibres, called lint, from the seeds – a necessary step before the cotton can be spun into yarn and made into fabric – have typically been owned by a small number of multinationals. The ginneries retain the seeds, which means farmers cannot press the seeds for oil or use them for animal feed and need to buy seeds back if they want to plant cotton the following season.

If Zambian farmers could get more money for their cotton – through better rates at the ginnery and by adding value to it themselves – it would boost their incomes and decrease their vulnerability to price volatility. Higher incomes from cotton would make it possible for them to grow cotton every year instead of only from time to time, in turn enhancing farmers’ incentive to invest time and money in yield improvements.

The response

In partnership with the Cotton Association of Zambia (CAZ), ITC has intervened on two fronts: to increase farmers’ market power by supporting the establishment and operations of a new ginnery co-owned by farmers; and to foster greater value addition by training farmers to hand-spin yarn and produce handwoven fabrics for sale in domestic, regional and international markets.

In late 2015, ITC helped set up Zambia’s first farmer-owned ginnery, the Mumbwa Farmers’ Ginning and Pressing Company (MFGPCo), in the country’s Central Province. ITC and CAZ are now working with the ginnery to train its personnel on export management and to facilitate linkages to export markets for the cotton it processes. In addition, they are working with farmers to improve quality by introducing a quality grading structure for seed-cotton, which would incentivize higher-quality production as farmers would receive higher rates for top-grade seed cotton.

In parallel to this work, ITC and CAZ are working to equip over 300 local farmers to add value to some of the cleaned lint they get back from the ginnery. Experts from India and Ethiopia – among the world’s leading handloom producers – trained the farmers to hand-spin yarn and then weave it into cloth. Many of these farmers, 90% of whom are women, were also trained in business skills, quality management and design.

The results

In 2016, the MFGPCo sold 257 tons of lint worth $363,321 to mills in Southern Africa that will spin it into industrial-quality yarn.

The MFGPCo has already dramatically changed the pricing structure for farmers in the cotton sector. By paying a premium over the 2.50 Zambian kwacha ($0.26) per kg price that the region’s multinational-owned ginneries were paying farmers for seed cotton, MFGPCo forced the others

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to follow suit, raising farmers’ receipts by more than 20% to 3.00 kwacha per kg for non-members and 3.10 kwacha per kg for members.

In addition, the MFGPCo offers farmers multiple business models instead of simply selling their seed-cotton to the ginnery and buying seeds back from it later.

‘Farmers now have options for how to sell their produce,’ explained Joseph Nkole, CAZ’s national coordinator. He gave an example of how this had translated into substantial income gains for one farmer. The farmer had produced 3.5 tons of seed cotton. Had he sold this seed-cotton to established multinational ginners, he would have earned 2.5 kwacha per kg, making a total of 8,750 kwacha. The following season, had he wanted to plant cotton, he would have needed to buy seeds back from the ginnery at 5 kwacha per kg.

With the new farmer-owned ginnery he could simply have sold his seed-cotton at the higher rate, but the MFGPCo also offered him the possibility of ginning his seed cotton for a 1,000-kwacha fee. The farmer exercised the latter option and received 1,575 kg of lint and 1,925 kg of seed back from the ginnery. He was able to sell the lint at 17 kwacha per kg and the seed for 5 kwacha per kg, bringing in a total of 36,400 kwacha – or more than four times what he would have previously earned.

Spinning yarn earns farmers an additional $0.65 or so for every kilogram of lint. Weaving the yarn into fabric and selling it locally and around the region multiplies the value further. During the first Zambian Textile and Leather Expo 2016, farmers associated with the Mumbwa ginnery won first prize for best textile exhibitor.

The future

Though a pilot activity, the Mumbwa ginnery has demonstrated the considerable potential for cotton farmers to boost their incomes through increased market power and value addition. The operations in Mumbwa will be scaled up in 2017 as more farmers sell seed-cotton to the farmer-owned ginnery, which is also planning to set up an oil press to allow farmers to transform cotton seeds into oil. The Zambian government has announced plans for three additional farmer-owned ginneries in other parts of the country.

Countries in the region such as Mozambique have expressed interest in replicating the approach.

Funders

European Union, United Kingdom

1. Classing cotton, Mumbwa 2. Mumbwa Farmers’ Ginning and Pressing Company (MFGPCo) 3.&4. Training in hand-spinning cotton

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‘Farmers now have options for how to sell their produce.’

Joseph Nkole, National Coordinator, Cotton Association of Zambia

Seed cotton price received by farmers

multinational ginneries

MFGPCoginnery

2.50 kwacha/kg 3 to 3.10 kwacha/kg


CASE STUDY

Supporting international sourcing and sales for Tunisia’s textiles and clothing sector

The challenge

The textile and clothing sector is Tunisia’s main source of manufacturing export revenue and value addition. The sector employs about 200,000 people, three-quarters of them women, mostly in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It offers considerable potential for further growth and job creation.

Yet Tunisian textile and clothing exporters often struggle to harness their full potential in international markets. Longstanding competition from China, Viet Nam and Bangladesh has been exacerbated by the entry of new market actors in places like Egypt, Turkey, Morocco and Sri Lanka. To the extent that Tunisian SMEs are part of international supply networks in the sector, it is mainly as sub-contractors to big companies at the lowest-value parts of the production chain. They struggle to differentiate their products in the highly competitive international market, held back by weak capacities in styling, modelling and the preparation of collections. Their supplier base is small, constraining their already limited ability to respond to buyers’ fast-changing expectations and demands.

The response

ITC is working with the Tunisian government, sector institutions such as the Fédération Nationale du Textile (FENATEX), the Centre de Promotion des Exportations (CEPEX) and 37 companies in the country’s textile and clothing sector to increase export earnings and create new job opportunities for young people.

The Projet d’Appui à la Compétitivité de la chaîne de valeur du secteur Textile et Habillement (textile and clothing value chain competitiveness project, or COM-TEXHA) operates on multiple fronts. It provides training on input sourcing management and facilitates links with new potential suppliers to enable SMEs to diversify their supply base and ramp up export capacity. It fosters partnerships between

companies from the country’s more internationally integrated coastal areas and those from the relatively isolated interior to help them expand value chains and generate jobs in those areas. By creating a pool of young workers specialized in product development, the project meets companies’ needs for cutting-edge design and production management.

Finally, the project works to connect Tunisian companies to potential international clients through business matchmaking events in selected markets such as Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Denmark, Spain and Sweden.

The results

Companies involved with the project have successfully diversified their supplier bases, upgraded product quality and made inroads in international markets while spurring follow-on cross-border business activity independent of the ITC project. A 2016 trade mission to Egypt saw five of the companies strike deals with Egyptian suppliers.

‘This mission was a discovery for us. We were too much focused on our day-to-day lives, we didn’t see further than the tip of our nose but this mission opened our eyes,’ said Safouene Chebbi, owner of Sarra Creation, a Sfax-based producer of ready-to-wear clothes, after signing an agreement to source inputs from an Egyptian supplier at rates lower than what his company used to pay.

To reduce the transaction costs associated with sourcing, four competing makers of lingerie and bathing suits – Bacovet International, Enfavet International, Isalys and Mahdco Tunisie – joined forces to create a purchasing consortium. The country’s first such group, the alliance will lower unit costs through bulk purchases and let them share the burden of participating in trade fairs and identifying new suppliers.

Meeting the Tunisian companies prompted eight Egyptian suppliers of textiles, yarn, accessories and other inputs to open a new office in Tunisia to pursue new contracts.

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Training on fashion trends and collection development has helped 17 companies develop higher quality and more attractive products. Four are set to be in the spotlight as up-and-coming lingerie manufacturers at a top international trade fair in France in 2017.

Companies associated with the project in 2016 hired 11 of the young graduates of Tunisia’s Institut supérieur des métiers de la mode de Monastir trained by ITC in market trends.

Since it started working with ITC in 2015, Sarra Creation, which began in 2002 as a subcontractor to a better-known Tunisian brand, has developed its own brand, Bellino, and opened two new boutiques in the cities of Sfax and Sousse.

ITC, in collaboration with CEPEX, facilitated business matchmaking events in September in Denmark and Sweden where 25 Tunisian companies met with 29 potential Nordic clients. ITC is working to ensure that these preliminary talks are converted into sales contracts.

The future

An independent evaluation conducted in 2016 found that the project had been effective and efficient in delivering assistance to SMEs in Tunisia’s textile and clothing sector. Based on the evaluators’ recommendations, ITC will continue to support the companies’ efforts to internationalize.

The project will also work to broker new partnerships between inland SMEs and larger companies based in greater Tunis and the Sahel region in the country’s south. The country’s logistics companies may require assistance to improve their capacity for direct delivery to foreign clients.

ITC will continue to support the Tunisian government in improving the business environment for SMEs with an emphasis on identifying and lowering obstacles to trade. ITC will also continue working with the trade and investment support institutions in the textile and clothing sector to equip them to better serve SME clients seeking to connect to international markets.

Funder

Switzerland

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1. B2B meetings between Tunisian companies and prospective Spanish buyers 2. Export quality management workshops 3. Textile company, Tunis 4. Collection development workshop

‘We didn’t see further than the tip of our nose but this mission opened our eyes.’

Safouene Chebbi, Tunisian apparel entrepreneur, after signing an agreement with a new supplier in Egypt


ITC INNOVATES

Facilitating China-Africa trade and investment for value addition and job creation

The challenge

Much of Africa has experienced sustained high economic growth in the past decade. Maintaining this momentum and generating jobs for the continent’s growing young population will require continued structural transformation from low to high productivity activities and increased value addition within sectors.

China’s emergence as a leading investor and trading partner for many African countries presents major opportunities to drive inclusive growth. Yet while China is increasingly emphasizing the wider development dimension it is seeking to achieve through its investments in Africa, there are multiple constraints on the extent to which investment can flow to job-rich sectors such as agro-processing and light manufacturing. There are also constraints on the impact such investments have on poverty alleviation.

Rising costs at home are pushing Chinese manufacturers to develop production facilities abroad. Unlike their counterparts in the extractive and construction sectors, Chinese investors in manufacturing and agro-processing have relatively little experience doing business in Africa. They lack information and understanding about investment and trade opportunities, local labour laws and the broader business environment. For their part, African government institutions and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) lack information about Chinese investors’ interests and requirements. The varying regulatory framework across different African countries can also dissuade potential investors. The cumulative result is that Chinese investments tend to focus on large projects in a limited number of sectors.

Institutional and cultural gaps also play a role. African countries’ investment promotion agencies are effective at attracting inward investment but often lack strategies for targeting Chinese investors. Coordination among trade and investment promotion agencies is frequently insufficient, leading to inadequate, incomplete replies to investor inquiries about possibilities for export-oriented investment. Language barriers and differences in business culture also hamper trust and understanding among African and Chinese business partners.

Maximizing the developmental and employment gains from foreign investment thus takes more than simple market forces alone.

The solution

In Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique and Zambia, the Partnership for Investment and Growth in Africa (PIGA) project is working to encourage Chinese investment in the agro-processing and light manufacturing sectors and to ensure that this investment translates into inclusive growth and job creation.

Launched in October 2015, PIGA is a partnership between ITC, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the China-Africa Development Fund (CADFund). Project partners also include the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and trade and investment support institutions (TISIs) in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique and Zambia.

The idea underlying the initiative is that enabling sub-Saharan African countries to capture more than their current sliver of global manufacturing activity would create productive jobs and stable growth. The primary impact of the project would be poverty reduction; as a by-product, China, the African countries and the United Kingdom hope to strengthen cooperation and generate useful learning on trade-related investment and development assistance, with a focus on SMEs.

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Unlike their counterparts in the extractive and construction sectors, Chinese investors in manufacturing and agro-processing have relatively little experience doing business in Africa.


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In order to help African countries achieve the transition to higher productivity and more inclusive growth, the project will seek to stimulate export-oriented investments anchored in labour-intensive sectors.

The project opened with a scoping and design phase between November 2015 and March 2017, during which ITC worked to identify and start to tackle constraints facing exporters and investors in the four countries. These constraints ranged from inadequate market information and weak supply-side capacity to trouble overcoming regulatory barriers in export markets and obtaining financing for investment capital or to underwrite trade transactions. Alongside these efforts, ITC analysed each country’s export potential and investment opportunities while mapping out ongoing investment promotion efforts.

Two prominent events in China – a February seminar in Tangshan to promote investment in the four countries and a May meeting in Beijing on Chinese investment for sustainable trade and growth in Africa more broadly – enhanced awareness of the project among close to 500 investors, senior government officials, TISIs and business associations from Africa, China and the United Kingdom. More importantly, the meetings resulted in direct business linkages and the initiation of negotiations on potential investment projects.

Late in 2016 a meeting in Guangzhou brought together more than 200 African companies looking for joint ventures and Chinese investors to scale-up their businesses in Africa. During the event Chinese and African companies initiated investment deals that the project team will help bring to fruition through advisory services, follow-up visits and support to better equip African TISIs to facilitate inward investment from China.

The future

ITC and its project partners are working to tackle institutional bottlenecks and policy constraints hampering the development of links between foreign investors and the broader local economy in Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique and Zambia. For each country, the project will develop investment guides and online information platforms in English and Chinese. It will also identify potential alignments of interest between Chinese investors and African companies’ supply chains and organize investment and export-oriented B2B events in China and the African countries.

By working on real investments and export deals with SMEs, foreign investors and buyers, the project will encounter many of the actual constraints that companies face in similar contexts. This will in turn yield lessons for policy action that go beyond general notions about constraints to investment. As a result, PIGA has the potential to make a significant contribution to the public stock of knowledge about what African countries can do to bolster integration into international value chains in labour-intensive sectors.

The project will also shed light on the potential multiplier effects that foreign investment in the agriculture and manufacturing sectors can create in terms of productivity growth, job creation, improved product quality and backward linkages to the rest of the economy.

Funder

United Kingdom

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1.&2. PIGA business partnership event, Guangzhou, China 3. PIGA Forum on Chinese Investment for Sustainable Trade and Economic Growth in Africa, Beijing 4. Site visit: Mushroom producers in Lusaka, Zambia

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U N S D G s I T C

U N S D G s I T C

Corporateresults


ITC seeks inputs from its stakeholders and updates them on key developments in its work at annual sessions of the Joint Advisory Group (JAG) and meetings of the Consultative Committee for the ITC Trust Fund (CCTIF). The JAG is composed of government representatives from members of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the World Trade Organization (WTO); JAG sessions are also open to observers from other intergovernmental agencies and relevant non-governmental organizations.

Joint Advisory Group

ITC’s JAG held its 50th formal session in Geneva on 4 July 2016. Members discussed the 2015 Annual Report and offered their views on ITC’s future strategic orientation. In their addresses to the session, WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo and UNCTAD Deputy Secretary-General Joakim Reiter congratulated ITC on its record delivery in 2015 and recognized ITC as an invaluable partner in promoting sustainable trade-led growth and development. Each expressed gratitude for ITC’s collaboration throughout 2015 in areas such as trade facilitation, e-solutions, trade and market intelligence and SME competitiveness.

ITC Executive Director Arancha González said that structural reforms and a focus on innovation had enabled ITC to scale up delivery to its highest level ever without compromising on effectiveness. She noted that ITC had fully embedded the Sustainable Development Goals into its programming. Emphasizing the need for predictable and multi-year funding to strengthen ITC’s ability to plan longer-term and respond creatively to changes in the operating environment, she pointed to ITC’s healthy post-2016 project pipeline as a testament to funders’ continued faith in the organization to deliver sustainable Aid for Trade solutions.

Delegates commended ITC for its highest-ever delivery and for its leadership in addressing key development challenges. They welcomed ITC’s adoption of the 2030 Agenda as an umbrella framework and lauded the organization’s commitment to supporting the bottom of the pyramid. Delegates expressed particular appreciation for ITC’s work on women’s economic empowerment, youth employment and entrepreneurship, regional integration and South-South cooperation, as well as its offering of free market intelligence tools that are global public goods. Delegates described ITC as a unique organization in the Geneva trade hub and as a reliable partner that delivers value for money.

Consultative Committee of the ITC Trust Fund

Composed of ITC funders and beneficiaries, the Consultative Committee of the ITC Trust Fund (CCITF) is tasked with periodically reviewing ITC’s extra-budgetary financing from funders’ voluntary contributions as well as ITC’s delivery through programmes and projects.

One informal and two formal CCTIF meetings were held in 2016. Key topics discussed included ITC’s performance and delivery in 2015 and the first half of 2016, planning for 2017, updates on ITC’s management response to past United Nations and independent evaluations, ITC’s programme-based approach to organizing its work and the transition to Umoja, the new United Nations-wide enterprise resource planning system

U N S D G s I T C

Corporate governance and structure

CORPORATE RESULTS


Alignment of ITC’s organizational structure

In November 2016 ITC reformed its organizational structure to bring human resource deployment and reporting lines more fully into alignment with ITC’s six focus areas of work, as well as to streamline the project design process. This will contribute to increased synergies and organizational efficiency across programmes within focus areas.

Under the new structure, the Division of Market Development (DMD) houses all teams that work on Providing Trade and Market Intelligence and on Building a Conducive Business Environment – including the trade strategy, trade facilitation and trade negotiations and policy reform teams – in addition to the SME Trade Academy. In light of rapidly growing demand for the latter’s e-learning courses, staff specialized in training course development were centralized in the SME Trade Academy.

The Division of Enterprises and Institutions (DEI) combines the focus areas Strengthening Trade and Investment Support Institutions (TISIs), Connecting to International Value Chains and Promoting and Mainstreaming Inclusive and Green Trade. This facilitates ITC’s work on improving sector value-chain competitiveness, using trade to create incentives for environmental sustainability and increasing income opportunities for women, youth and marginalized communities. The TISI section plays a major role in supporting institutions that help businesses grow and become more competitive.

The Division of Country Programmes (DCP), with its five regional offices, remains the custodian for ITC’s final focus area, Supporting Regional Economic Integration and South-South Links. It also hosts ITC’s Innovation Lab and the new Project Design Taskforce, a dedicated team that works with

specialists from across ITC to respond rapidly to growing demand for ITC project development with customized project proposals.

The Communications and Events section in the Office of the Executive Director (OED) has integrated the ITC library team, which no longer manages a physical library at ITC headquarters but instead focuses on serving ITC clients with trade-related publications and news updates. In the Division of Programme Support some roles have been broadened to allow staff to adapt to changing workloads in different functional areas.

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1.&2. 50th Joint Advisory Group session at WTO, Geneva

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CORPORATE RESULTS


ITC’s Independent Evaluation Unit (IEU), as per its 2015 policy, has started to progressively implement a three-tiered approach to increase the scope, quality and use of evaluation across the organization. Under this approach, the IEU will concentrate on ITC-wide and programme evaluations; project managers will self-evaluate large projects; and all project teams will review their results in project closure reports. One expected effect of the new policy is to foster an evaluative culture throughout ITC, with staff encouraged to make a habit of seeking evidence for the effects of their interventions and then to alter practice for maximal impact.

Accordingly, in 2016 the IEU, which functions as an independent internal body for learning and accountability within ITC, conducted and managed evaluations of several large projects and programmes. Most were final evaluations that occurred after all ITC activities had been completed. This was the case for projects to promote intra-regional trade in eastern Africa and to boost export competitiveness and diversification in the Gambia, as well as for the Netherlands Trust Fund Programme - Phase II (NTF II) and the non-tariff measures programme. One ongoing project to enhance support for the pashmina sector in Nepal received a mid-term evaluation.

In addition, the IEU synthesized key messages from its own and from funders’ evaluations into a 2016 Annual Evaluation Synthesis Report, which was presented and discussed during the year’s Joint Advisory Group session.

2016 evaluations: Four takeaways

The first lesson from the evaluations conducted by the IEU in 2016 is that ITC is most effective at enhancing SME export competitiveness when it successfully involves

partners in decision-making and implementation. The evaluations found that ITC’s focus on tailoring its technical assistance to empower partners to better serve their own constituencies was a key factor in maximizing impact.

For example, the NTF II impact evaluation (see box) demonstrated a link between enhanced institutional capabilities for a key in-country partner – in this case a coordination body of farmers’ associations – and the impact generated by ITC in terms of enduring income gains for individual coffee farmers.

The second message was that the gender mainstreaming tools designed by ITC’s Women and Trade Programme, together with strong backing from ITC management, had been effective at integrating gender-sensitive perspectives throughout ITC project work, reporting and human resources practices. This was borne out by evaluations of specific ITC projects as well.

The third lesson was the importance of effective monitoring. A Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) evaluation commended the Ethical Fashion Initiative’s approach to performance compliance monitoring and evaluation, called Respect Invest Sustain Empower (RISE), for its methodological soundness in systematically measuring data against a carefully determined baseline. This approach to results-based monitoring may be replicated in other ITC operations, especially in cases involving large numbers of workers, communities and enterprises.

A final affirmation came from the United Nations Evaluation Group-Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (UNEG-OECD) Development Assistance Committee Peer Review Panel, which had at ITC’s request conducted a peer review of ITC’s evaluation function. It concluded that the IEU was performing to high professional

U N S D G s I T C

Evaluation and performance

CORPORATE RESULTS


standards and that evaluation results were being taken on board both by ITC management and stakeholders.

Response to external evaluations

Over the course of 2016, ITC continued to respond to recommendations made in two major external evaluations of the organization: a 2014 Independent Evaluation and a 2015 evaluation by the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS).

As of the end of the year, ITC had fully implemented three of the five overarching recommendations: accelerating the integration of cross-cutting issues into ITC projects; moving to a strategic base for supporting and deploying ITC’s unique strengths in aid for trade; and increasing ITC’s visibility and engagement as an actor in the field of trade-related development assistance. These reforms are reflected, for example, in ITC’s shift to a programmatic approach, with results-oriented project design, planning and reporting linked to programme-specific theories of change. ITC has also completed a set of actions intended to enhance its visibility, strategic partnerships, stakeholder and regional interaction, branding and outreach.

On the two remaining strategic recommendations – to further develop ITC’s distinctive capacities for trade-related technical assistance and work with the private sector, and to strengthen governance and accountability while minimizing bureaucracy – ITC made considerable progress in 2016, with reforms on track for full achievement in 2017. Among these actions are the new evaluation processes described in this section of the Annual Report.

Strengthening ITC’s culture of evaluation

In 2016, the IEU observed that ITC teams were increasingly internalizing evaluation recommendations for the purposes of project design and implementation, as well as to strengthen partnerships with funders and clients and to improve the effectiveness of project monitoring and reporting.

In line with good practices promoted in the United Nations system, the IEU introduced new work planning approaches to evaluation, such as using risk assessment approaches for the evaluation work programme, evaluation implementation and communication.

In the years ahead the IEU will work more closely with ITC’s project design and management functions to continue implementing its three-tier evaluation policy. In 2017 this will involve the launch of an e-learning course on evaluation for project designers and managers as well as a new process for self-evaluation and project closure reporting.

Evaluation of 2009–2012 Netherlands-funded coffee project in Uganda shows long-term impact

In 2016, the IEU conducted a follow-up impact evaluation of a 2009-2012 NTF II project in Uganda that sought to help small-scale coffee growers increase incomes by improving yields, price and quality, and connecting more directly to the international coffee value chain. The project targeted value chain constraints by strengthening farmer organizations and umbrella institutions such as the National Union of Coffee Agribusinesses and Farm Enterprises (NUCAFE), a coordination body of coffee farmers’ associations. It supported NUCAFE to expand its service portfolio to allow farmers to sell in bulk to European markets.

The evaluation, which surveyed 398 coffee households across the country including beneficiary and non-beneficiary households, concluded that the project had yielded considerable long-term impact. Three years after project closure, higher yields, price, and household incomes were still visible among coffee farmers involved with the project, confirming sustained livelihood improvements. Between 2011 and 2015 beneficiary farming households earned an average of $1,808 per year from coffee sales, compared to an average of $683 by otherwise comparable non-beneficiary farmers. The improved incomes were largely attributed to higher prices and volumes enabled by upgraded farming practices, enhanced coffee quality and collective marketing through NUCAFE. In some cases the higher productivity and incomes enabled by the project helped families mitigate the effects of an outbreak of coffee wilt, a plant disease.

The evaluation found that NUCAFE’s collective marketing and farmer ownership model had been effective in transferring price premiums directly to farmers as well as in spreading knowledge of better farming techniques and quality control. NUCAFE’s exports, all supplied by coffee farmers’ associations, have increased from 190 tons in 2010 to 577 tons in 2015 – from $300,000 to $1.28 million – a function of improved yields and quality as well as better export marketing, including participation in international coffee trade fairs.

The evaluation concluded that the collective marketing approach supported by ITC and the project funder, the Netherlands government, through the Centre for the Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries (CBI), had successfully increased smallholders’ incomes and recommended scaling up the model in other parts of Uganda and elsewhere.

Annual household income, 2011–2015

projectbeneficiaries

comparable households

$1 808 $683

CORPORATE RESULTS


U N S D G s I T C

FIGURE 3 Expenditure pattern 2012–2016 ($ million)

Funding for ITC’s work has two main components: the regular budget (RB) approved biennially by the United Nations General Assembly and the World Trade Organization (WTO) General Council, and extra-budgetary (XB) funds, which depend on agreements reached with funders on an ongoing basis, typically spanning several years. Programme support costs (PSC) are earned via a charge to XB expenditures; this budget is set annually.

OVERALL RESOURCES

�� $119.33 million was available as overall resources for 2016;

�� $94.39 million was received in gross contributions;

�� $90.31 million was the overall cumulative expenditure (RB, XB gross and PSC expenditure).

Total expenditures in 2016 were $11.72 million lower than in 2015: RB expenditures decreased by $3.76 million, XB by $7.57 million and PSC by $0.39 million.

Regular budget

The UN General Assembly and the WTO General Council make equal contributions to fund the biennial RB, which covers running costs including salaries and common staff costs. RB also finances general research and development on trade promotion and export development, part of which results in published studies, market information and statistical services. ITC’s regular budget for the biennium 2016–2017 amounted to 75.50 million Swiss francs.

�� $38.60 million of RB resources were available for 2016.

�� $36.41 million was recorded as expenditures as of 31 December 2016, which translates into an implementation rate of 94.3% of available resources.

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Financial overview

36.3 40.0

37.4 40.2

36.4 40.1 39.6

51.3 56.1

49.0

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Regular budget Extra-budgetary net plus PSC expenditure

CORPORATE RESULTS

73

The $3.76 million decrease in RB spending in 2016 compared to the year before is attributable to lower spending on staff costs and improvements to the ITC building, together with prudent management practice reflecting the tendency to spend less in the first year of a biennium (2016 in this case) and more in the second year (2017).

Extra-budgetary funds

XB resources depend on contributions from funders. Voluntary contributions often cover multi-year periods. This means that resources available in 2016 are earmarked for current or future year activities. Total available resources in 2016 included:

�� $21.66 million carried forward from 2015.

�� $50.72 million in gross contributions received in 2016.

In 2016, measured by US-dollar expenditure, ITC delivered approximately 13.7% less technical assistance, capacity building and market intelligence than in the previous year, with gross extra-budgetary expenditures of $47.69 million.

General performance was in line with outcome targets set for the 2016-17 biennium but also reflected an unexpected shortfall in core funding from a handful of funders who faced competing priorities at home. This decrease was partially offset by additional earmarked funds. ITC’s delivery performance continued to be strongly supported by corporate initiatives for innovation and project development.

Programme support account

In line with UN financial procedures, ITC charges standard PSC ranging from 7% to 13% on XB expenditures. This programme support revenue is used to cover indirect and incremental costs associated with XB projects. These costs include the central administration of human, financial and information communication technology resources, monitoring and oversight.

�� $5.07 million received in PSC income.

�� $6.21 million in PSC expenditure.

�� $2.15 million of cumulative surplus in the PSC account at the end of the year.

TABLE 2 RB expenditure in 2016 ($ million gross)*

CATEGORIES Expenditure

Staff and other personnel costs 29.97

Operating and other direct costs 3.72

Contractual services 1.38

Travel 0.52

Equipment, vehicles and furniture 0.48

Grants out 0.33

Supplies, commodities and materials 0.00

Total 36.41

Resources available 38.60

% of Delivery 94.3%

* Because the budget is approved in Swiss francs, the amounts reported have been converted to United States dollars to make the data easier to compare and to provide a comprehensive view of ITC’s financial situation for accounting and reporting purposes.

TABLE 1 Status of resources ($ million gross) as of 31 December 2016

DESCRIPTION Opening balance Net income received*Expen

Expenditures Total cash at hand

Regular budget - 38.60 36.41 2.19

Programme support costs 3.28 5.07 6.21 2.14

Total extra-budgetary resources 21.66 50.72 47.69 24.69

Extra-budgetary resources, Window I 1.68 10.90 10.53 2.04

Extra-budgetary resources, Window II 19.98 39.82 37.15 22.65

Total 24.94 94.39 90.31 29.02

* Net contribution including refunds to donors ($0.44 million), excluding interest and transfers to operating reserves.

CORPORATE RESULTS


IPSAS and Umoja implementation

In 2016 ITC received an unqualified audit opinion from the UN Board of Auditors on its second financial statements based on the International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSAS) for the year that ended 31 December 2015. The audited financial statements for the year that ended 31 December 2016 will be available in the second half of 2017.

The production of IPSAS-compliant financial statements for the third straight year confirms ITC’s ability to maintain IPSAS compliance over the long term. IPSAS sustainability encompasses five major components:

1. IPSAS benefits management, which entails the tracking, monitoring and compiling of regular reports, including to the UN General Assembly, on IPSAS benefits;

2. Strengthening internal controls organization-wide;

3. Managing the IPSAS regulatory framework to implement changes in the standards, which entails tracking standards developed or amended by the IPSAS Board and updating ITC’s IPSAS policy framework;

4. Supporting the transition to Umoja as the system and book of records for IPSAS-compliant accounting and reporting, including for asset accounting and automating financial statements; and

5. Continued IPSAS training and skills development. All of the above activities are currently ongoing and will continue through 2017.

In 2016, Umoja introduced new reporting modules, including the automation of processes for financial statements. Further work will nevertheless be required to take advantage of the full potential of Umoja.

TABLE 3 XB expenditure by focus area in 2016 ($ million gross)

FOCUS AREAS Expenditure

Providing trade and market intelligence 6.97

Building a conducive business environment 2.54

Strengthening trade and investment support institutions 1.36

Connecting to international value chains 18.82

Promoting and mainstreaming inclusive and green trade 7.65

Supporting regional economic integration and South-South links 9.73

Corporate (IT, result-based management, visibility and partnerships)** 0.62

Total 47.69

Distribution of projects accross focus areas is based on their respective lead programme.

** Includes initiatives that support and enhance the delivery of trade-related technical assistance projects: IT, results-based management, partnerships and visibility.

CORPORATE RESULTS


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In terms of human resources management, ITC’s top priorities in 2016 were diversity, in particular gender parity; further upgrading staff members’ leadership and technical skills; and expanding the organization’s Junior Professional Officer (JPO) programme. In addition, ITC’s human resources team worked to improve the way it offers services to divisions and to streamline administration through Umoja and related processes.

More progress on gender parity

In 2016 the percentage of female professional and directorial staff at ITC met the 42% target, on track to meet the 2017 corporate target of 44%.

ITC performed well against the United Nations System-Wide Action Plan (UN-SWAP) gender equality and women’s empowerment indicators, which set out an accountability framework for gender mainstreaming within the UN system. Not only does ITC meet or exceed minimum requirements on 12 of the 15 UN-SWAP indicators (up from eight in 2014), it achieved the highest ratings on seven benchmarks (compared with just one in 2014). ITC is now a leader on gender parity within the system.

To cement and enhance ITC’s reputation as a gender-sensitive workplace, human resources management made it mandatory for division directors and section chiefs to demonstrate, in their performance appraisals from 2016 onwards, their specific contributions towards gender parity, work-life balance and conflict prevention and resolution. ITC has ensured all mandatory goals are quantifiable and measurable so that ITC can monitor and shape its organizational culture to promote an enabling environment for gender equality and women’s empowerment.

In 2017, ITC will work to deepen its organizational culture of recognition as good management practice.

Upgrading technical and leadership skills

In 2016, 385 staff members undertook training in a variety of fields ranging from the competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and performance management and development to environmental mainstreaming, conflict resolution, unconscious bias and the economics of climate change.

Expanding ITC’s JPO programme

In 2016 ITC had nine Junior Professional Officers (JPOs), from Finland, Germany, Indonesia (funded by the Netherlands), Italy, Japan and the Netherlands. ITC aims to employ 16 JPOs in 2017.

Together with colleagues from the International Labour Organization and the World Health Organization, ITC designed, initiated and ran an award-winning JPO boot-camp programme to transition JPOs from passive to active learning and to increase their chances when applying for jobs within the UN.

Improving client outreach

The human resources team now has dedicated business partners for each of ITC’s five divisions. The system makes it possible for each human resources business partner to develop a greater understanding of the specific operational issues, opportunities and constraints divisional management teams face and to respond with tailored solutions.

A January 2017 staff survey on perceptions of fairness, well-being, information-sharing and personal commitment yielded results largely unchanged since the previous engagement survey, which was conducted at the end of 2015.

Human resource management

U N S D G s I T C

CORPORATE RESULTS


Kuliya Nikusheva Finance Assistant (Kazakhstan)

‘The finance section, which provides functional support for ITC project implementation in line with UN and IPSAS financial principles, is a dynamic working area. Presently, Umoja and the current financial climate are challenges we need to address together. All in all, ITC, with its brilliant colleagues from many cultures and nationalities, offers a professional working environment with invaluable opportunities for learning and personal development.’

First impressions

Staff members representing 83 nationalities(up from 82 nationalities in 2015)

Interns engaged from 41 countries

315

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ITC Human Resources in Numbers

Diane Sayinzoga Advisor, Office of the Executive Director (Rwanda)

‘My job as a Mo Ibrahim Fellow in the Office of Executive Director involves participating in high-level discussions and preparing working documents. I am involved in ongoing ITC projects, including in my country, Rwanda. Working at ITC has enhanced my professionalism. It is a very exciting and valuable experience to see how ITC’s work increases the competiveness of SMEs and enables them to integrate into the global economy.’

Petra Walterova Advisor, Programmes and Strategic Partnerships (Czech Republic)

‘I came to ITC with a background in international trade policy and practice, but my daily work here centres on something that had long been marginalized in commercial decisions but is now a cornerstone of competitiveness: sustainability. What ITC does really impacts what happens in the world. Working with major private and public players to deliver for thousands of SMEs globally to help them navigate the complex sustainability landscape is incredibly motivating.’

Staff members from developing and transition economies (down from 115 in 2015)

111

Staff members from least developed countries (unchanged from 2015)

18

of competitions at professional or higher level from developing or least developed countries (unchanged)

35%

Fixed-term recruitment competitions won by women (up from 45% in 2015)

52%

55%

45%


52%

48%

The share of women among ITC consultants rose to 42% in 2016 (up from 38% in 2015)

42%

42%

58%

CORPORATE RESULTS


Communications and outreach

U N S D G s I T CUsing conventional and social media to extend ITC’s influence

In 2016 ITC continued to raise the profile of its work by engaging media in beneficiary and funder countries and advocating for inclusive trade that benefits large sections of society.

Press coverage of ITC remained strong, with 4,619 media mentions as global news outlets and regional and national media covered ITC initiatives and used ITC data in their own reporting and analysis. ITC also used the press to get its own message out directly through 25 op-ed articles in newspapers and the influential Project Syndicate network as well as the Executive Director’s blog on the Huffington Post.

ITC’s website received over 3.4 million page views in 2016 over the course of more than 1.7 million user sessions. Both figures were up about 5% over the previous year. Some 96 news stories and 44 press releases and media advisories publicized the accomplishments of ITC projects, receiving close to 130,000 views. The online edition of ITC’s quarterly publication, International Trade Forum, received 284,000 page views over the course of the year.

Trade information accounts for a significant part of ITC’s media footprint. In 2016 ITC trade data were widely cited in the press around the world. Global news sources like Reuters, Bloomberg, the Financial Times, the New York Times and Deutsche Welle, as well as national media in dozens of countries, used figures from ITC market intelligence tools to inject facts into the trade debate.

To reach a wider audience with news about its projects, events and publications, ITC continued to increase the time and attention devoted to social media and developing engaging audio-visual and infographic materials. Over the

course of 2016 ITC’s main Twitter account (@ITCNews) expanded its reach by over 60% to reach 15,240 followers. ITC’s LinkedIn network grew by over 26%, reaching 21,334 connections. And on Facebook, ITC’s following nearly doubled to 10,190.

Video- and graphic-heavy social media campaigns helped draw attention to ITC initiatives such as SheTrades, events like the World Export Development Forum and publications like the SME Competitiveness Outlook. Trade Compass, ITC’s video news programme on trade and development, was linked to major ITC activities, covering themes such as e-commerce, environment-friendly trade and Sri Lanka’s emergence as an Indian Ocean commercial hub.

Publications bolstered by new strategy

ITC’s practical, policy-oriented research publications grew in visibility in 2016, with web downloads for 47 new publications and the earlier collection growing by 33% to reach 36,300. The increase was driven in part by the policy relevance and timeliness of the research and in part by a new dissemination strategy to focus on specific themes and promote publications on social media and ITC and partner events.

The approach brought ITC publications to the attention of top business leaders, government officials and researchers as well as the media: a report on the effects of the quinoa trade on Andean farmers’ household nutrition was featured in The Economist and The Guardian. Requests came in from 25 countries to customize and distribute national versions of SME-oriented publications on legal and quality-management services.

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CORPORATE RESULTS


1. Communication staff at JAG 2016 2. Launch of ITC report Investing in Trade Promotion Generates Revenues

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media mentions

4 619

visitors to ITC website(11% increase over 2015)

1.7 million

Facebook

Twitter

LinkedIn

Social media followers (increase over 2015)

98%61%26%

ITC page views online (4% increase over 2015)

3.4 million

publication downloads (33% increase over 2015)

36 300

In line with ITC’s strategic plan, the overarching theme for publications in 2016 was standards and regulations, which can impose costs on SMEs seeking to trade but can also present market opportunities. The second edition of ITC’s annual flagship report, the SME Competitiveness Outlook, addressed recommendations to businesses, trade and investment support institutions and government policymakers on how to build the capacity of SMEs to comply with such measures and connect to new markets. Academic working papers and technical reports reinforced the standards theme, as did a new collection of publications on quality management, voluntary social and environmental standards, non-tariff measures and packaging, all released on World Standards Day.

Other topics addressed in 2016 included e-commerce opportunities for SMEs, non-tariff measures in the European Union and trade in services in eastern and southern Africa. The most downloaded publications continue to be the ITC Coffee Guide, the SME Competitiveness Outlook and Model Contracts for Small Firms.


CORPORATE RESULTS


ITC events help build awareness and informal coalitions in support of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as a bedrock of development through trade. In 2016 ITC organized some 75 events with a wide range of partners, drawing on voices from business, government and academia to showcase pragmatic and innovative recommendations to help SMEs trade. The role of standards was a recurring theme in the year’s events, notably at the Trade for Sustainable Development Forum.

Highlights from selected ITC-led events are below.

World Export Development Forum

Trade for Success: Connect, Compete, Change

Colombo, Sri Lanka, 12–13 October 2016

The World Export Development Forum (WEDF) is ITC’s flagship event, with the aim of ‘talking business, and doing business.’ Host Sri Lanka worked closely with ITC to make the most of the event for its national trade-led development strategy, resulting in the strongest private-sector representation in the forum’s 16-year history. Companies such as Dilmah Tea, Jetwings, Alibaba, eBay and DHL shared insights with participants at the conference. Private-sector associations worked with Sri Lanka’s Export Development Board and ITC to organize some 300 international business-to-business meetings in seven sectors ranging from spices and processed foods to information technology. To prepare them for the meetings, ITC’s SME Trade Academy offered online training to Sri Lankan trade attachés. The event also featured the international launch of the SME Competitiveness Outlook, an ITC-Alibaba report on SME e-trade opportunities in the Chinese market and a SheTrades programme for Sri Lankan women entrepreneurs.

World TPO Network Conference and Awards

Moving forward: The future of trade and investment promotion

Marrakesh, Morocco, 24–25 November 2016

The World Trade Promotion Organization Network Conference and Awards (WTPO), held every two years since 1996, brought national trade and investment promotion agencies together from more than 80 countries to Marrakesh. The partnership with co-host Maroc Export led to a strong presence from African regional and national organizations and a record amount of traditional media coverage. Among the topics addressed at the conference were the disruptive effects of digital transformation; risk management for natural, political and economic crises; and innovative solutions such as crowdfunding to boost SME-led trade. Agencies from Madagascar, Costa Rica and France won awards for their innovative initiatives to help SMEs benefit from trade opportunities. The conference also led to a new network to boost business linkages among Arab-speaking countries. Thanks to a multilingual advocacy-based strategy involving participants, the event had a strong presence on Twitter, while Facebook Live interviews brought the issues to new audiences.

Major ITC events

U N S D G s I T C

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CORPORATE RESULTS


E-Commerce Caravan

The Swiss Route

Geneva, Zurich, Switzerland, 30 June–11 July 2016

In partnership with eBay and DHL, ITC’s E-Commerce Caravan allowed SMEs from six countries in Africa and the Middle East to sell their products in pop-up stores in Geneva and Zurich. In addition to nearly $60,000 in direct sales, the event generated a substantial uptick in online traffic for the sellers. Participating in the caravan gave entrepreneurs a better understanding of customer expectations as well as customs logistics. In addition, they received training in online presentation and pricing from eBay.

Trade for Sustainable Development Forum

Sustainable Value Chains: Open Data Makes the Difference

Geneva, 28–30 September 2016

The third edition of ITC’s Trade for Sustainable Development Forum highlighted the importance of collecting and analysing data to enable small-scale producers to improve their livelihoods by responding more effectively to consumer demand for products that reflect their social and environmental values. Open data – and diverse data – is critical to fostering sustainable trade but requires partnerships among farmers, business and government.

1. World Export Development Forum 2016, Colombo 2. TPO Network World Conference and Awards 2016, Marrakesh 3. E-Commerce Caravan, Geneva 4. Trade for Sustainable Development Forum 2016, Geneva

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CORPORATE RESULTS


Intergovernmental organizations

The World Trade Organization (WTO) and ITC continued to work together on Aid for Trade, especially the implementation of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), to ensure that reforms to border measures and customs procedures respond to the needs of the private sector in developing countries, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). At the WTO’s 2016 Public Forum, ITC co-organized public discussions on women’s economic empowerment, climate change and sustainable development.

The WTO and ITC, in partnership with the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), launched a new online alert system, known as ePing, to help government agencies and SMEs keep track of government notifications about trade-related regulatory policies.

Together with the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), ITC and the WTO published the annual World Tariff Profiles documenting customs tariffs for 161 WTO members as well as other countries and customs territories. The compilation’s data on applied tariffs and ad valorem equivalents are drawn from ITC’s Market Access Map database. The three organizations also collaborate to publish annual statistics on global services trade.

ITC also worked with the WTO and UNCTAD to measure progress towards the trade-related objectives and indicators of the Sustainable Development Goals and the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development.

Within the context of the United Nations Inter-Agency Cluster on Trade and Productive Capacity, ITC strengthened its collaboration with UNCTAD in areas such as trade information; trade facilitation; employment and global value chains; and

in women’s economic empowerment, with the launching of SheTrades in Kenya during the UNCTAD XIV conference.

ITC continued to be a key implementing agency and partner of the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF), contributing to EIF Tier-2 projects in least developed countries (LDCs) such as Benin, Chad, Comoros, Guinea, and Senegal, and launching new activities in Togo.

ITC is working with the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) to share trade data and develop a common methodology to detect and clean up irregularities in trade data.

The World Bank and ITC continued to work together on multiple fronts. In the Arab region, the two organizations strengthened their partnership to support SMEs in Tunisia, Morocco and Jordan to do business online. Together with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), they published a report pointing to policy reforms and technical assistance measures through which G20 governments could facilitate developing country and SME participation in multi-country production networks.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and ITC continued joint programming for country-based collaboration in Comoros, Madagascar, the State of Palestine and Rwanda.

UN Women, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and ITC supported women-owned SMEs and cooperatives in the State of Palestine to become more competitive and increase their participation in export-oriented value chains.

ITC continued to work with other United Nations agencies to coordinate assistance through the United Nations Country Teams (UNCT) and United Nations Development Assistance Frameworks (UNDAF) in the State of Palestine,

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Partnerships

U N S D G s I T C

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CORPORATE RESULTS


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as well as to implement One UN trade and development projects in Rwanda and the United Republic of Tanzania.

ITC and the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) strengthened their strategic and operational partnership. The UNWTO opened an office in Geneva housed within the ITC building and the two organizations worked together to promote inclusive tourism in the Pacific Islands and Myanmar.

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and ITC launched a joint project in Sri Lanka aimed at increasing the international competitiveness of SMEs. This complements joint work in other regions of Africa and Asia.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and ITC started a pilot project in Iran to promote collaborative innovation in technology and develop a joint ITC-WIPO approach to intellectual property (IP) strategy and innovation branding and marketing.

UNHCR - The UN Refugee Agency, the Norwegian Refugee Council and ITC collaborated on creating better economic opportunities for refugees through a pilot project in Uganda.

ITC, through its Youth and Trade Programme, has joined the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Global Initiative on Decent Jobs for Youth, the first United Nations system-wide effort to promote youth employment worldwide.

The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) and ITC continued their efforts to connect women entrepreneurs from developing countries to markets through international value chains.

Under its Supporting Indian Trade and Investment for Africa (SITA) project, ITC is collaborating with the World Food Programme (WFP) to facilitate direct business linkages between African farmers and Indian buyers.

ITC initiated a partnership with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on developing livelihood programmes for migrant communities, including a pilot programme on engaging micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and the Arab diaspora to support export-driven economic growth in North Africa.

Regional organizations

ITC and the African Union Commission (AUC) continued their partnership to develop and implement programmes that support trade integration priorities set out in the AUC Strategic Plan 2014-2017. This work, which contributes to the African Union and regional economic communities’ integration efforts and their Agenda 2063 for growth and development, included support on setting up a Trade Observatory and an African Business Council.

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and ITC published a report highlighting the need for stronger cross-border business support services, as well as direct participation by services suppliers in regional integration processes, to accelerate trade, economic growth and employment in the region.

The East African Community (EAC) and ITC started implementing a joint project to enable SMEs to trade more both within the region and with the rest of the world.

ITC and the West African Economic and Monetary Union (better known by its French acronym, UEMOA) built on past collaboration by establishing a joint project to promote exports from the eight-member bloc as well as to deepen trade integration and improve the business environment within it.

ITC and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) worked together on business networking and developed an action plan to implement the Community’s Industrial Development Policy Framework.

1. Official opening of the World Tourism Organization’s Geneva liaison office 2. European Union and the United Nations launch project to support trade in Sri Lanka 3. WTO Public Forum 2016

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CORPORATE RESULTS


ITC continued its collaboration with the Islamic Development Bank Group (IsDB), in particular with the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC), to provide technical assistance to the Arab Group at the WTO in Geneva, to strengthen trade and investment support institutions (TISIs) and to address non-tariff measures (NTMs) affecting intra-Arab Trade. Through ITC’s SME Trade Academy, IsDB and ITC initiated an online learning programme on accessing halal markets.

ITC has also partnered with the League of Arab States (LAS) to contribute to accelerating implementation of the Greater Arab Free Trade Agreement (GAFTA) by identifying solutions to non-tariff barriers to trade.

ITC and the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF) continued their collaboration on NTMs in Colombia and Ecuador and advanced in their joint work to enhance cocoa trade’s contribution to improved livelihoods and biodiversity protection in Peru.

ITC collaborated with the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB) to create the Bahamas Trade Information Service (BTIS) to serve as a platform for trade information, dialogue and informed decision-making among businesses. The two organizations also collaborated on assessing the arrowroot industry in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and on improving the food safety and quality infrastructure of the condiments sub-sector in Barbados.

ITC worked with the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) to improve income and employment opportunities, food security, and the overall competitiveness of the Caribbean coconut sector.

The European Commission’s Directorate-General for Trade and ITC published a survey-based study on how NTMs affect EU exporters. ITC is also working with the Commission’s Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO) to support

developing country businesses – particularly SMEs – to participate in international trade.

ITC deepened its collaboration with the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States, with particular emphasis on bolstering value-addition and trade in the agri-processing and services sectors.

ITC continued to collaborate with the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA) secretariat to address NTMs hampering trade within the bloc.

ITC has joined forces with the World Alliance for Quality to launch the Global Platform for Quality (GPQ), an initiative that seeks to enable SMEs to meet the growing array of technical requirements and standards demanded by international buyers.

ITC signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Standards and Metrology Institute for the Islamic Countries (SMIIC) to collaborate on initiatives including increasing transparency and knowledge of halal standards as well as capacity building of standards bodies and SMEs.

National partner institutions

The Trade Export Promotion Agency (TEPA) of Saint Lucia and ITC advanced in their partnership to boost business export capacities, paving the way for an update of Saint Lucia’s 2004 National Export Strategy (NES).

ITC partnered with Maroc Export to organize the 11th Trade Promotion Organization Network World Conference and Awards (WTPO) in Marrakesh, Morocco. The conference addressed the future of trade and investment promotion.

The Sri Lanka Export Development Board (EDB) and ITC jointly organized the 16th World Export Development Forum in Colombo. The event focused on inclusive growth and job creation through trade.

4. MoU signing with ITFC on Aid for Trade Initiative for Arab States 5. MoU signing between Sri Lanka Export Development Board and ITC for WEDF 2016 6. MoU between ITC and Saint Lucia Trade Export Promotion Agency

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CORPORATE RESULTS


ITC and the Qatar Development Bank (QDB) advanced collaboration on a joint initiative to strengthen the competitiveness of the country’s private sector, including the development of a Strategic Trade Development Roadmap to guide economic diversification.

ITC and CBI, the Dutch Centre for the Promotion of Imports from Developing Countries, continued their cooperation, under the Netherlands Trust Fund III Programme, in Bangladesh, Kenya, Uganda and Myanmar, and initiated discussions for further collaboration in a subsequent phase of the initiative. ITC’s SME Trade Academy worked with CBI and the import promotion desk of sequa gGmbH, a German private-sector development organization, to develop and deliver an online course on corporate social responsibility. Together with Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE), ITC upgraded an export fitness test for Bosnian, Ukrainian and Serbian trade promotion organizations and sector associations.

ITC continued joint work with the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the China-Africa Development Fund (CADFund) on the ‘scoping’ phase of the Partnership for Investment and Growth in Africa (PIGA) project.

ITC and Expertise France joined hands on a pilot initiative to provide six-week online training courses for young and aspiring entrepreneurs in Libya.

Private sector and foundations

Agri-food corporation PepsiCo and ITC continued joint work to develop a sustainability management tool for PepsiCo’s farm suppliers, collecting data and building resilience at the farm and landscape levels as part of the company’s Sustainable Farming Initiative.

ITC and eBay, the e-commerce corporation, formed a new partnership to boost the capabilities of SMEs in developing countries and LDCs to participate in global digital commerce. SMEs participating in ITC’s e-Solutions programme will gain access to eBay’s logistics network.

ITC and logistics giant DHL expanded their collaboration to enable more African enterprises to do business online to cover trade facilitation and logistics. The two organizations partnered with eBay to hold an e-Commerce Caravan – a series of pop-up stores aimed at generating sales and online for goods produced by SMEs working with ITC – in Switzerland.

ITC and Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba launched a guide to help Asian SMEs understand how to sell their products and services on Chinese virtual platforms.

ITC and Barclays Bank of Kenya launched a partnership under the SheTrades initiative to build business and financial management skills for 10,000 local women entrepreneurs to enable them to connect to international trade opportunities.

Google has agreed to be ITC’s technology partner providing technical support and marketing assistance for the SheTrades initiative’s tech activities, including the web and mobile application.

ITC’s Ethical Fashion Initiative partnered with several private sector companies in 2016: with lifestyle brand Karen Walker to release a new ‘Made in Kenya’ collection; with Spanish footwear company Camper to launch a long-term project to make shoes and create fair and dignified jobs in Ethiopia while minimizing impact on the environment; and with Italian fashion event Pitti Immagine Uomo to promote talented young fashion designers from Africa.

ITC continued to work with Parodi Group, an Argentina-based honey producer and trader, to boost export volumes and quality for honey from Zambia.

1. CBI signs the Trade for Sustainable Development principles 2. MoU between eBay and ITC

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CORPORATE RESULTS


3. Signing the SheTrades Kenya partnership with Barclays 4. ITC and members of the World Alliance for Quality set up global platform to assist SMEs

ITC and Bosch, the German electronics giant, continued to train East African SMEs in inefficiency-reducing lean methodology.

ITC and The Body Shop continued their pilot project in Ghana’s shea butter sector to empower women farmers and producers to improve incomes and environmental sustainability.

ITC partnered with Fair Trade Africa, Fair Trade Max Havelaar Switzerland and Chocolats Halba to diversify income sources and reduce risks for smallholders in the cocoa sector.

ITC continued to work with the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Kering to create economic incentives for biodiversity conversation with respect to pythons in Southeast Asia and crocodiles in Madagascar.

Sime Darby, a Malaysia-based diversified multinational company, supported ITC’s work to align government and private sector efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, with particular emphasis on the agri-food sector.

Other partnerships

ITC continued to work with Child Youth Finance International (CFYI), a global multi-sector network dedicated to enhancing the financial capabilities of children and youth, to support young entrepreneurs to access networks of coaches and impact investors.

ITC and Youth Business International (YBI), a global network of independent non-profit initiatives operating

in 42 countries, created a partnership to provide young entrepreneurs around the world with the knowledge, skills and capacity to take advantage of international trade opportunities.

ITC and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) continued to cooperate on a variety of research related topics, including superfoods and sustainability.

ITC and the European University Institute (EUI) jointly published a study on the contribution of social and environmental standards to sustainable value chains. The paper also sets out a research agenda on voluntary sustainability standards.

The Duke University Center on Globalization, Governance and Competitiveness (CGGC) and ITC signed a memorandum of understanding for institutional cooperation on global value chain analysis and inclusive sector development.

ITC and the Global Network of Export-Import Banks and Development Finance Institutions (G-NEXID) renewed partnerships to strengthen SMEs and financial institutions in developing countries.

3 4

U N S D G I T C

U N S D G I T C

Appendices

APPENDICES


APPENDIX IITC FOCUS AREAS AND PROGRAMMES

FOCUS AREAS PROGRAMMES

1. Providing Trade and Market Intelligence


Non-Tariff Measures in Goods and Services


2. Building a Conducive Business Environment

Trade Development Strategies

Trade Facilitation

Supporting Trade Negotiations and Policy Reform

3. Strengthening Trade and Investment Support Institutions


4. Connecting to International Value Chains

Value-added to Trade

E-Solutions: Enabling Trade Through Digital Channels

5. Promoting and Mainstreaming Inclusive and Green Trade



Youth and Trade

Trade and Environment

6. Supporting Regional Economic Integration and South-South Links



APPENDICES


HOW ITC PROGRAMMES LINK TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS AND TARGETS

SDG TARGETS PROGRAMMES

Goal 1End poverty in all its forms everywhere.

1.2 Reduce proportion of men, women and children of all ages living in poverty.

All programmes

1.7 Create sound policy frameworks based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies.

Goal 2End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture.

2.3 (1) Double productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers, in particular women and (2) provide access to knowledge, markets and opportunities for value addition.

Non-Tariff Measures Programme

Transparency in Trade Programme

Trade and Environment Programme

Value Added to Trade Programme 2.4 Ensure sustainable food production systems.

Goal 4Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

4.4 Ensure youth and adults have relevant skills for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship.

Youth and Trade Programme

Goal 5Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

5.5 Ensure women’s full and effective participation in business and trade and equal opportunities.

Empowering Women to Trade Programme

E-Solutions Programme


5a Support women’s equal rights to economic resources.

5b Enhance use of enabling technology to promote the empowerment of women.

Goal 8Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all.

8.2 Achieve higher levels of economic productivity through diversification, technological upgrading and innovation.

All programmes

8.3 (1) Promote policies that support productive activities, decent job creation, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation and (2) encourage formalization and growth of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises.

8.9 Implement policies to promote sustainable tourism that creates jobs and promotes local culture and products.

8.11 Increase Aid for Trade support.

Goal 9Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.

9.3 Increase access of SMEs to financial services and integration into value chains and markets.


Trade Development Strategies Programme

Value Added to Trade Programme

9b Ensure a conducive policy environment for industrial diversification and value addition.

Goal 10Reduce inequality within and among countries.

10.1 Achieve income growth of the bottom 40%. Supporting Trade Negotiations Programme

Value Added to Trade Programme10.8 Implement special and differential treatment for developing countries, in particular least developed countries, in accordance with WTO agreements.

Goal 12Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns.

12.2 Achieve sustainable management and efficient use of natural resources.



Value Added to Trade Programme12.6 Support companies in adopting sustainable practices and integrating sustainability information into their reporting cycles.

Goal 16Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.

16.6 Support effective, accountable and transparent institutions at all levels.

Strengthening Trade and Investment Support Institutions Programme

Supporting Trade Negotiations Programme

16.7 Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making.

16.8 Ensure participation of developing countries in the institutions of global governance.

Goal 17Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalize the global partnership for sustainable development.

17.10 Ensure a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system under the WTO.

All programmes

17.11 Support significantly increased exports of developing countries, doubling the least developed countries’ share of global exports by 2020.

APPENDICES


APPENDIX IIITC TECHNICAL COOPERATION BY REGION AND FOCUS AREA

FOCUS AREA / PROGRAMME / PROJECT DO

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1 Providing Trade and Market Intelligence


Euro-Med Trade and Investment Facilitation Mechanism – An online tool and problem-solving network

European Union n 743 441 59%

Export Potential Map ITF W1 n 200 193 96%

Global Public Goods: Market Access Map European Union,

Russian Federation, Japan

n 1 308 966 74%

Malawi: Improving trade statistics and trade information systems


SME Competitiveness Index ITF W1 n 50 13 25%

Trade for Sustainable Development (T4SD)

Germany, Humanist Institute

for Cooperation with Developing

Countries (HIVOS), ITF W1, PepsiCo,

Switzerland, FEFAC, Denmark;

UNEP, Sicthing IDH Sustainable

Trade Initiative (The Netherlands),

Sustainable Agriculture Initiative

(SAI platform)

n 1 918 2 023 105%

Improving transparency in trade through embedded market analysis tools

Islamic Centre for Development of

Trade n 0 8 -

Non-Tariff Measures in Goods and Services

Arab States: Coordinating a regional approach to overcoming trade obstacles related to NTMs

United States n 750 137 18%

Non-tariff measures (Phase II)

European Union, ITF W1,

United Kingdom, United States

n 1 440 1 609 112%


Competitive Intelligence ITF W1 n 40 24 60%

Market Insider ITF W1 n 96 96 100%

Note: ITF W1 represents core funding (also referred to as ‘Window 1 ITC trust funds’). This consists of un-earmarked and soft-earmarked contributions from funders, which ITC allocates in line with funder preferences within the framework of ITC’s Strategic Plan.

APPENDICES


Note: ITF W1 represents core funding (also referred to as ‘Window 1 ITC trust funds’). This consists of un-earmarked and soft-earmarked contributions from funders, which ITC allocates in line with funder preferences within the framework of ITC’s Strategic Plan.


NO

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SU

B-S

AH

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AN

AFR

ICA

AS

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AC

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EU

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$'00

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$'0

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% S

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Myanmar: Roadmap for setting up a national trade information network

United Kingdom n 56 50 90%

TIS Revolving Fund / E-learning Revolving Fund n 300 248 83%

The Bahamas: Setting-up the Bahamas Trade Information Services (BTIS)

Carribean Development Bank

(CDB) n 0 106 -

2 Building a Conducive Business Environment

Trade Development Strategies

Export Strategy Design and Management ITF W1 n 623 620 99%

Liberia: Tourism and wood-furniture export strategies Enhanced Integrated

Framework (EIF) n 199 177 89%

Tajikistan: National food safety strategy

WTO - Standards and Trade

Development Facility (STDF)

n 45 39 86%

Ukraine: Strategic Trade Development RoadmapWestern NIS

Enterprise Fund (WNISEF)

n 92 84 92%

Qatar: Improving SME competitiveness Qatar n 203 267 131%

Togo: Programme d'appui au commerce ITF W1 (BDF) n 17 0 0%

Myanmar: National export strategy implementation management support

Germany n 0 83 -

Trade Facilitation

Improving the business environment for exporting SMEs through trade facilitation

Qatar, UNCTAD, ITF W1 n 1 006 493 49%

Associate expert - Trade Facilitation Italy n 10 131 1 320%

Supporting Trade Negotiations and Policy Reform

Associate expert - Trade negotiation and policy for business

France n 100 28 28%

CEFTA: Addressing market access barriers Germany n 45 23 52%

Pakistan: Assistance to the design and implementation of trade policy and regulatory reform to improve export possibilities

European Union / UNIDO n 50 21 42%

Supporting trade negotiations ITF W1 n 200 199 99%

Tajikistan: WTO accession negotiations - Policy advice and capacity building (Component One)

Switzerland n 99 140 141%

Associate expert - Supporting trade negotiations and policy reform

Finland n 0 56 -

APPENDICES



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SU

B-S

AH

AR

AN

AFR

ICA

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3 Strengthening Trade and Investment Support Institutions


AIM for results: AIM for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)

ITF W1 n 600 599 100%

Saint Lucia: Strengthening the institutional infrastructure for Export Promotion

Saint Lucia, ITF W1 n 464 92 20%

TS Revolving Fund Revolving Fund n 40 82 205%

Zambia: Green jobs One UN n 100 125 125%

Barbados: Enhancing the food safety and quality infrastructure in the condiments sub-sector

Caribbean Development Bank

(CDB) n 0 94 -

4 Connecting to International Value Chains

Value-added to Trade

Afghanistan: Trade-related technical assistance European Union n 650 159 25%

Associate expert: Office for Asia and Pacific Japan n 150 131 88%

Bangladesh: IT & ITES Export Competitiveness (NTF III) The Netherlands n 439 553 126%

Benin: Strengthening production and trade capacities Enhanced Integrated


Caribbean: Development of value-added products and intraregional trade to enhance livelihoods from coconuts

European Union n 1 200 1 336 111%

Chad: Improving the competitiveness of gum arabic industry

Enhanced Integrated


Comoros: Improving the competitiveness of vanilla, ylang-ylang and clove exports

Enhanced Integrated


DHL Partnership - Developing an innovative offer on transport and logistics

DHL n 83 85 102%

Ecuador: Developing exports of services

Ecuador / Corporación de

Promoción de Exportaciones E Inversiones

(CORPEI)

n 81 45 56%

ECS Revolving Fund Revolving Fund n 100 154 154%

Export Competitiveness Programme Management (NTF III) The Netherlands n 555 696 125%

Fiji: Improvement of key services to agriculture European Union n 580 452 78%

Fiji: Improvement of key services to livestock and livestock products

European Union n 1 215 1 418 117%

APPENDICES



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Gambia: Sector competitiveness and export diversification Enhanced Integrated


Guinea: Development of the mango sector Enhanced Integrated


Kenya: Enhancing export competitiveness of the IT and ITES industry (NTF III)

The Netherlands n 455 440 97%

Kenya: Enhancing the export competitiveness of the avocado industry (NTF III)


Kyrgyzstan: Strengthening export competitiveness of SMEs in the textile and clothing sector and enhancing trade support institutional capacity


Lesotho: Horticulture productivity and trade development Enhanced Integrated


Morocco: Export development for employment creation Canada n 1 100 872 79%

Myanmar: Inclusive tourism - focusing on Kayah State (NTF III)


Myanmar: Improving food safety and compliance with SPS measures to increase export revenues in the oilseeds value chain



n 400 166 42%

Rwanda: Boosting the international competitiveness of SME clusters

One UN n 350 196 56%

Secondee: Office of Asia and Pacific South Korea n 306 240 79%

Senegal: Improving the competitiveness of the mango industry

Enhanced Integrated


Sri Lanka: Improving the safety and quality of fruits and vegetables



n 51 70 138%

Sri Lanka: Trade-related technical assistance European Union n 650 211 33%

Tajikistan: Strengthening export competitiveness of SMEs in the textile and clothing sector and enhancing trade support institutional capacities


Tanzania: Integration of horticulture value chains into the tourism industry

One UN n 254 222 87%

Tanzania: Integration of horticulture supply/value chains into tourism - SECO component


Trade in services: Trade intelligence, partnership development and technical assistance

ITF W1, China n 80 173 216%

Expanding developing country and LDC services exports through China International Fair for Trade in Services

China n 200 192 96%

Tunisia: Strengthening the competitiveness of the textile and garments value chain

Switzerland n 1 000 903 90%

Uganda: Enhancing the export competitiveness of the coffee industry (NTF III)


Uganda: Enhancing export competitiveness of the IT and ITES industry (NTF III)


APPENDICES



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Ukraine: Linking SMEs in the fruit and vegetables industry to global and domestic value chains

Sweden, ITF W1 (BDF) n 725 335 46%

Enterprise Diagnostic Platform (Value-added to trade initiatives)

ITF W1 n 200 186 93%

Zimbabwe: Strengthening the national sanitary and phytosanitary institutional framework


Zimbabwe: Support to trade and private sector development

European Union n 614 1 090 177%

Togo: Renforcement des capacités productives et commerciales de la filière soja

Enhanced Integrated

Framework (EIF) n 0 88 -

Mali: Appui au développement des exportations ITF W1 (BDF) n 13 18 136%

Associate Expert - Sector Competitiveness The Netherlands n 0 137 -

Project development under EIF Phase II (Djibouti, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia)

ITF W1 (BDF) n 18 14 81%

Eastern Partnership: Fostering the integration of SMEs into EU value chains

ITF W1 (BDF) n 29 30 103%

Supporting LDC service export through WTO LDC services waiver

Sweden n 0 65 -

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: market, technology and food safety compliance assessment for the arrowroot industry

Caribbean Development Bank n 0 70 -

Zambia: Provision of TRTA Assitance European Union n 0 176 -

Bhutan: TRTA ITF W1 (BDF) n 0 24 -

Associate expert: office of the Director (DEI) Germany n 0 45 -

Madagascar: Development of exports ITF W1 (BDF) n 0 3 -

Value-added to Trade ITF W1 n 0 33 -

E-Solutions: Enabling Trade Through Digital Channels 187 446 238%

E-solutions: Basic tools and training ITF W1 n 100 97 97%

Arab States: Development of SME exports through virtual market places

World Bank n 1 000 737 74%

5 Promoting and Mainstreaming Inclusive and Green Trade


Africa: Improving economic benefits for women in the coffee sector (Women and Trade Phase II)

United Kingdom, ITF W1 n 461 404 88%

East African Community:Trade facilitation for women informal cross-border traders and MSMEs (phase II)


Economic Empowerment of Women in the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) Countries

Australia n 432 257 59%

Ethiopia and Mongolia: Supporting women business enterprises in the textile and garments sector (Women and Trade Phase II)

ITF W1 n 228 225 99%

APPENDICES



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Ghana: Improving competitiveness of women in the yam value chain (Women and Trade Phase II)


Pacific: Economic empowerment of women (Women and Trade Phase II)

Australia n 907 704 78%

Palestine: Enhancing women SMEs development (Women and Trade Phase II)


Palestine: Creating a one-stop-shop for sustainable business SDG Fund n 197 179 91%

The Global Platform for Action on sourcing from women vendors (Women and Trade Phase II)


Women and Trade Programme Phase II - Programme Management

Australia, United Kingdom n 1 813 1 616 89%

Zambia: Empowering women in the cotton sector (Women and Trade Phase II)


East Africa: Empowering women to trade Trademark East

Africa (TMEA) n 0 143 -


Cambodia: Export diversification and expansion – high value silk

Enhanced Integrated


Ethical Fashion Initiative: Private label ITF W1 n 150 146 98%

Ghana: Establishing sustainable export-market links and supply chain for ethical fashion and lifestyle products (Ethical Fashion Initiative)


Haiti: Ethical Fashion Initiative United States n 200 297 148%

Lao People’s Democratic Republic: Enhancing sustainable tourism, clean production and export capacity

Switzerland-EIF n 73 83 115%

Nepal: Pashmina enhancement and trade support Enhanced Integrated


Poor Communities and Trade Programme ITF W1, Japan n n 1 123 1 052 94%

Kenya: Linking refugees in Dadaab to IT-enabled market opportunities (Refugee Employment & Skills Initiative - RESI: Pilot Phase)

ITF W1 n 147 153 104%

Associate expert: Poor communities and trade Germany n n 61 138 227%

Youth and Trade

Youth and trade accelleration programme for Morocco ITF W1 (BDF) n 23 0 0%

Youth and Trade Initiative ITF W1 n 100 72 72%

Gambia youth empowerment ITF W1 (BDF) n 0 29 -


Associate expert - Trade and Environment Germany n 159 157 99%

Namibia: Supporting trade competitiveness for SMEs ITF W1 (BDF) n 20 15 77%

Trade and Environment Programme ITF W1 n 500 425 85%

APPENDICES



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6 Supporting Regional Integration and South-South Links


Africa: Regional cotton sector strategies European Union n 11 48 432%

Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative International Islamic

Trade Finance Corporation (ITFC)

n 1 000 636 64%

Associate Expert - Office of Africa Finland n 92 108 118%

East African Community: Trade and regional integration ITF W1 n 552 551 100%

Kenya: Promoting intraregional trade in East Africa ITF W1 n 397 381 96%

Tanzania: Promoting intraregional trade in East Africa ITF W1 n 523 582 111%

Trade promotion and value addition for African cotton European Union n 350 168 48%

UEMOA: Projet de development European Union n 400 0 0%

Zambia: Promoting intraregional trade in East Africa ITF W1 n 503 501 100%

Uganda: Improving livelihoods of displaced people and host communities through trade

ITF W1 (BDF) n 3 0 0%

Associate Expert: Office of Africa The Netherlands n 0 164 -

West Africa: Route du Coton C4 ITF W1 (BDF) n 0 8 -

Madagascar: Provision of technical assistance under the regional integration capacity building project

COMESA / EU Regional Integration Support Mechanism

(EU-RISM)

n 0 69 -

Zimbabwe: Regional integration and capacity-building project for cotton-to-clothing sector

COMESA / EU Regional Integration Support Mechanism

(EU-RISM)

n 0 265 -


Asian LDCs: Enhancing export capacity for intraregional trade

China n 300 279 93%

Partnership for Investment-led Growth in Africa (scoping and design phase)

United Kingdom n 1 136 917 81%

Supporting Indian Trade and Investment for Africa (SITA) United Kingdom n 3 900 5 200 133%

7 Corporate (IT and Performance, Visibility and Partnerships)

Enhanced Information Systems ITF W1 n 130 75 58%

Fellowship: Mo Ibrahim Foundation Mo Ibrahim Foundation n 100 114 114%

Results-based management ITF W1 n 40 31 77%

Visibility and partnerships ITF W1 n 422 385 91%

Business Development Fund ITF W1 (BDF) n 347 0 -

APPENDICES


APPENDIX IIIITC COUNTRY AND REGIONAL PROJECTS AND PROGRAMMES BY COUNTRY

COUNTRY/AREA�� GLOBAL AND REGIONAL PROGRAMMES�� COUNTRY-SPECIFIC PROJECTS

AFGHANISTAN �� Asian LDCs: Enhancing export capacity for intraregional trade

�� Afghanistan: Trade-related assistance

ALBANIA �� Aim for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)

�� CEFTA: Addressing market access barriers

ALGERIA �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative

�� Euro-Med Trade and Investment Facilitation Mechanism – An online tool and problem-solving network

ANGOLA �� Africa: Regional cotton sector strategies

ARMENIA �� Eastern Partnership: Fostering the integration of SMEs into EU value chains*

AZERBAIJAN �� Eastern Partnership: Fostering the integration of SMEs into EU value chains*

BAHAMAS �� Setting-up the Bahamas Trade Information Services (BTIS)

BAHRAIN �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative

BANGLADESH �� Aim for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)

�� Asian LDCs: Enhancing export capacity for intraregional trade

�� Export competitiveness programme management (NTF III)

�� Bangladesh: IT & ITES export competitiveness (NTF III)

BARBADOS �� Aim for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)

�� Barbados: Enhancing the food safety and quality infrastructure in the condiments sub-sector

BELARUS �� Eastern Partnership: Fostering the integration of SMEs into EU value chains*

BELIZE �� Aim for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)

�� Caribbean: Development of value-added products and intraregional trade to enhance livelihoods from coconuts

BENIN �� Africa: Regional cotton sector strategies

�� Western Africa: Route du coton-C4*

�� Benin: Strengthening production and trade capacities

BHUTAN �� Bhutan: Trade-related assistance*

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA


BURKINA FASO �� Africa: Regional cotton sector strategies

�� Aim for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)

�� Ethical Fashion Initiative: Private label

�� Ghana: Establishing sustainable export-market links and supply chain for ethical fashion and lifestyle products (EFI)

�� Poor Communities and Trade Programme


* Financed by the Business Development Fund

APPENDICES



BURUNDI �� Africa: Improving economic benefits for women in the coffee sector (Women and Trade Phase II)

�� East African Community: Trade and regional integration

�� East African Community: Trade facilitation for women informal cross-border traders and MSMEs (Phase II)

CAMBODIA �� Asian LDCs: Enhancing export capacity for intraregional trade



�� Cambodia: Export diversification and expansion – high value silk

CAMEROON �� Africa: Improving economic benefits for women in the coffee sector (Women and Trade Phase II)

�� Africa: Regional cotton sector strategies

CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC


CHAD �� Africa: Regional cotton sector strategies


�� Tchad: Projet de renforcement des capacités commerciales de la filière gomme arabique Tchadienne

CHINA �� Partnership for Investment-led Growth in Africa (scoping and design phase)

COMOROS �� Comoros: Improving the competitiveness of vanilla, ylang-ylang and clove exports

CÔTE D’IVOIRE �� Africa: Regional cotton sector strategies

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO


DJIBOUTI �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative

�� EIF Phase II (Djibouti, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia)*

DOMINICA �� Caribbean: Development of value-added products and intraregional trade to enhance livelihoods from coconuts

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC



ECUADOR �� Ecuador: Developing exports of services

EGYPT �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative


ETHIOPIA �� Africa: Improving economic benefits for women in the coffee sector (Women and Trade Phase II)



�� Ethiopia and Mongolia: Supporting women business enterprises in the textile and garments sector (Women and Trade Phase II)

�� Partnership for Investment-led Growth in Africa (scoping and design phase)


�� Supporting Indian Trade and Investment for Africa (SITA)

FIJI �� Fiji: Improvement of key services to agriculture

�� Fiji: Improvement of key services to livestock and livestock products

GAMBIA �� Aim for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)

�� The Gambia: Sector competitiveness and export diversification

�� The Gambia: Youth Empowerment*

APPENDICES



GEORGIA �� Eastern Partnership: Fostering the integration of SMEs into EU value chains*

GHANA �� Aim for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)



�� Ghana: Improving competitiveness of women in the yam value chain (Women and Trade Phase II)

GUINEA �� Guinea: Development of the mango sector

GUINEA-BISSAU �� Africa: Regional cotton sector strategies

�� Project development: EIF Phase II (Djibouti, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia)

GUYANA �� Caribbean: Development of value-added products and intraregional trade to enhance livelihoods from coconuts

HAITI �� Poor Communities and Trade Programme

�� Haiti: Ethical Fashion Initiative

INDIA �� Supporting Indian Trade and Investment for Africa (SITA)

INDONESIA �� Economic Empowerment of Women in the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) Countries

�� Trade and Environment Programme

IRAQ �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative

JAMAICA �� Aim for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)


JORDAN �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative

�� Arab States: Development of SME exports through virtual market places


KENYA �� Africa: Improving economic benefits for women in the coffee sector (Women and Trade Phase II)



�� East Africa: Empowering Women in Trade (Women and Trade Phase II)


�� Economic Empowerment of Women in the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) Countries

�� Export Competitiveness Programme Management (NTF III)

�� Kenya: Linking refugees in Dadaab to IT-enabled market opportunities (RESI: Pilot Phase)





�� Kenya: Enhancing export competitiveness of the IT and ITES industry (NTF III)

�� Kenya: Enhancing the export competitiveness of the avocado industry (NTF III)

�� Kenya: Promoting intraregional trade in East Africa

KUWAIT �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative

KYRGYZSTAN �� Aim for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)

�� Kyrgyzstan: Strengthening export competitiveness of SMEs in the textile and clothing sector


APPENDICES



LAO PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC (THE)


�� Lao People’s Democratic Republic: Enhancing sustainable tourism, clean production and export capacity

LEBANON �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative


LESOTHO �� Lesotho: Horticulture productivity and trade development

LIBERIA �� Project development: EIF Phase II (Djibouti, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia)

�� Liberia: Tourism and wood-furniture export strategies

LIBYA �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative

MADAGASCAR �� Trade and Environment Programme

�� Madagascar: Renforcement de la normalisation et de la qualité

�� Programme d’appui au développement des exportations malgaches*

MALAWI �� Africa: Regional cotton sector strategies

�� Malawi: Improving trade statistics and trade information systems

MALAYSIA �� Trade and Environment Programme

MALI �� Aim for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)





�� Mali: Appui au développement des exportations*

MAURITANIA �� Aim for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)

�� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative

�� Project development under EIF Phase 2 (Djibouti, Mauritania, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia)

MONGOLIA �� Aim for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)

�� Ethiopia and Mongolia: Supporting women business enterprises in the textile and garments sector (Women and Trade Phase II)

MONTENEGRO �� CEFTA: Addressing market access barriers

MOROCCO �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative



�� Morocco: Export development for employment creation

MOZAMBIQUE �� Africa: Regional cotton sector strategies


MYANMAR �� Asian LDCs: Enhancing export capacity for intraregional trade

�� Export Competitiveness Programme Management (NTF III)

�� Myanmar: Improving food safety and compliance with SPS measures to increase export revenues in the oilseeds value chain

�� Myanmar: Inclusive tourism – focusing on Kayah State (NTF III)

�� Myanmar: National export strategy implementation management support

�� Myanmar: Roadmap for setting up a national trade information network

APPENDICES



NAMIBIA �� Aim for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)

�� Namibia: Supporting trade competitiveness for SMEs*

NEPAL �� Aim for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)




�� Nepal: Pashmina enhancement and trade support

NIGER �� Africa: Regional cotton sector strategies

NIGERIA �� Aim for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)

OMAN �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative

PAKISTAN �� Pakistan: Assistance to the design and implementation of trade policy and regulatory reform to improve export possibilities

PAPUA NEW GUINEA �� Pacific: Economic empowerment of women (Women and Trade Phase II)

PERU �� Ethical Fashion Initiative: Private label


QATAR �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative

�� Qatar: Improving SME competitiveness

REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA


�� Eastern Partnership: Fostering the integration of SMEs into EU value chains*

RWANDA �� Africa: Improving economic benefits for women in the coffee sector (Women and Trade Phase II)





�� Rwanda: Boosting the international competitiveness of SME clusters

SAINT LUCIA �� Caribbean: Development of value-added products and intraregional trade to enhance livelihoods from coconuts

�� Saint Lucia: Strengthening the institutional infrastructure for export promotion

SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES


�� Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: Market, technology and food safety compliance assessment for the arrowroot industry

SAMOA �� Pacific: Economic empowerment of women (Women and Trade Phase II)

SAUDI ARABIA �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative

SENEGAL �� Africa: Regional cotton sector strategies

�� Senegal: Improving the competitiveness of the mango industry

�� Youth and Trade Initiative

SIERRA LEONE �� Aim for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)

SOMALIA �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative

SRI LANKA �� Aim for Results: Improving TISI performance and measurement (Phase I)

�� Economic Empowerment of Women in the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) Countries

�� Sri Lanka: Improving the safety and quality of fruits and vegetables

�� Sri Lanka: Trade Related assistance


APPENDICES



STATE OF PALESTINE �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative


�� State of Palestine: Creating a one-stop-shop for sustainable business

�� State of Palestine: Enhancing women SMEs development (Women and Trade Phase II)

SUDAN �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative

SURINAME �� Caribbean: Development of value-added products and intraregional trade to enhance livelihoods from coconuts

TAJIKISTAN �� Tajikistan: National food safety strategy

�� Tajikistan: Strengthening export competitiveness of SMEs in the textile and clothing sector

�� Tajikistan: WTO accession negotiations – Policy advice and capacity building (Component One)

THE FORMER YUGOSLAV REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA


TOGO �� Africa: Regional cotton sector strategies

�� Togo: Renforcement des capacités productives et commerciales de la filière soja

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO



TUNISIA �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative



�� Tunisia: Strengthening the competitiveness of the textile and garments value chain

TURKEY �� Euro-Med Trade and Investment Facilitation Mechanism – An online tool and problem-solving network

UGANDA �� Africa: Improving economic benefits for women in the coffee sector (Women and Trade Phase II)



�� East African Community: Trade regional integration

�� East African Community:Trade facilitation for women informal cross-border traders and MSMEs (Phase II)

�� Export competitiveness programme management (NTF III)

�� Kenya: Linking refugees in Dadaab to IT-enabled market opportunities (RESI: Pilot Phase)



�� Uganda: Enhancing export competitiveness of the IT and ITES industry (NTF III)

�� Uganda: Enhancing the export competitiveness of the coffee industry (NTF III)

UKRAINE �� Eastern Partnership: Fostering the integration of SMEs into EU value chains*

�� Ukraine: Strategic Trade Development Roadmap

�� Ukraine: Linking SMEs in the fruit and vegetables industry to global and domestic value chains

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

�� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative

APPENDICES



UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA

�� Africa: Improving economic benefits for women in the coffee sector (Women and Trade Phase II)




�� East African Community: Trade facilitation for women informal cross-border traders and MSMEs (Phase II)


�� Tanzania: Integration of horticulture supply/value chains into tourism – SECO component

�� Tanzania: Integration of horticulture value chains into the tourism industry

�� Tanzania: Promoting intraregional trade in East Africa

VANUATU �� Pacific: Economic empowerment of women (Women and Trade Phase II)

VIET NAM �� Trade and Environment Programme

YEMEN �� Arab States: Aid for Trade Initiative

ZAMBIA �� Africa: Regional cotton sector strategies



�� Zambia: Empowering women in the cotton sector (Women and Trade Phase II)

�� Zambia: Green jobs

�� Zambia: Promoting intraregional trade in East Africa

�� Zambia: Provision of technical assistance under the regional integration capacity-building project

ZIMBABWE �� Africa: Regional cotton sector strategies


�� Zimbabwe: Regional integration and capacity-building project for cotton-to-clothing sector

�� Zimbabwe: Strengthening the national sanitary and phytosanitary institutional framework

�� Zimbabwe: Support to trade and private sector development


APPENDICES


REGION REGIONAL COUNTRY-SPECIFIC

Sub-Saharan Africa

CEEAC: Appui au commerce intra-African Comoros: Projet d’appui institutionnel pour améliorer la participation des Comores dans le processus d’intégration régionale du COMESA

ECOWAS: Export Competitiveness and Inclusive Business Development

Djibouti: Developpement du tourisme*

EAC: EU-East African Community Market Access Upgrade Project

Guinea-Bissau: EIF Phase II Developpement du secteur agricole*

Horn of Africa: Linking refugees to IT-enabled market opportunities (Refugee Employment & Skills Initiative – RESI)

Liberia: EIF Phase II Strategie de developpement du tourisme et du secteur du bois*

Western Africa: Route du coton - C4* The Gambia: The Gambia Youth Empowerment Scheme*

Kenya: Linking refugees in Dadaab to IT-enabled market opportunities (Refugee Employment & Skills Initiative - RESI: Pilot Phase)*

Madagascar: Programme d’appui au développement des exportations malgaches*

Mali: Projet d’Appui au Développement des Exportations Maliennes (PADEM)*

Namibia: Supporting Trade Competitiveness for SMEs in Namibia*

Togo: Programme d’appui au commerce*

Ghana: Project for Boosting Ghana’s non-traditional Exports

Seychelles: Post WTO accession support

Asia and the Pacific

Bhutan: Trade-related assistance*

Myanmar: Creating an integrated trade information portal

Sri Lanka: Trade-related assistance

Arab Region Arab States: Overcoming trade obstacles related to non-tariff measures in the Arab countries

Libya: Trade Academy – Building business capabilities of Libyan entrepreneurs

Euro-Med Trade and Investment Facilitation Mechanism (TIFM) Phase II

Palestine: Improving competitiveness of selected goods and services to meet international markets demand

State of Palestine: National export strategy implementation management

Qatar: Qatar Action Plan*

Tunisia: Projet de valorisation des industries créatives et agroalimentaires pour un emploi durable

APPENDIX IVITC NEEDS ASSESSMENT AND PROJECT DESIGN IN 2016 BY REGION


APPENDICES


REGION REGIONAL COUNTRY-SPECIFIC

Latin America and the Caribbean

Caribbean: Development of value-added products and intraregional trade to enhance livelihoods from coconuts

Guatemala: Establishment of a new trade and investment promotion organization in Guatemala (GTI)

Central America: Linking women business enterprises with the global handmade gifts and decoration industry market

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines: Market, technology and food safety compliance assessment for the arrowroot industry

Fortalecimiento de la Red Centroamericana de Comercio (RCAC)

Barbados: Enhancing the food safety and quality infrastructure in the condiments sub-sector

Empowering vulnerable populations to generate value from garment waste in the Haitian-Dominican Republic border zone

The Bahamas: Setting up the Bahamas Trade Information Services (BTIS)

Colombia: Desarrollo de oportunidades de mercado para las frutas tropicales en la Unión Europea

Grenada: Supporting Grenada in the implementation of the strategy for fresh produce exports

Cuba: Empower small and medium-sized enterprises led by women (WBEs)

CARICOM: Empower small and medium-sized enterprises led by women (WBEs)

Eastern Europe and Central Asia

Eastern Europe: Eastern Partnership – Fostering the integration of SMEs into EU value chains*

Ukraine: Linking SMEs in the fruit and vegetables industry to global and domestic value chains*

Global and multi-regional

China’s Silk Belt and Road Initiative*

Partnership for Investment-led Growth in Africa – Main Phase

EU Intra-ACP Partnership for Private Sector Development

Needs Assessment for the fourth Netherlands Trust Fund (NTF IV) projects in Uganda (IT and IT-enabled services, oilseeds), Senegal (IT and IT-enabled services), Sierra Leone, Mano River Association (cocoa and associated crops) and Myanmar (tourism)

Linking African (Ethiopia, Côte d’Ivoire, Rwanda) and Asian SMEs to the world of e-commerce


APPENDICES


COUNTRY WOMEN MEN TOTAL %

DEVELOPING AND TRANSITION COUNTRIES

Argentina 1 5 6

Armenia 1 1 2

Barbados 1 1

Belarus 1 1

Bolivia 1 2 3

Brazil 4 1 5

China 3 3

Colombia 1 2 3

Côte d'Ivoire 2 2

Croatia 3 3

Dominican Republic 1 1

Ecuador 2 2

Egypt 1 1

Georgia 1 1

Ghana 1 1 2

Guatemala 1 1

India 3 7 10

Indonesia 1 1

Iran 1 1

Jamaica 1 1 2

Kazakhstan 1 1

Kenya 3 3

Madagascar 1 1

Malaysia 2 1 3

Mauritius 2 3 5

Mexico 1 4 5

Mongolia 1 1

Morocco 1 2 3

Namibia 1 1

Pakistan 2 2

Panama 1 1

Peru 1 1

Philippines 1 1

Romania 4 1 5

Russian Federation 4 4

Serbia 1 1

South Africa 1 2 3

Sri Lanka 1 1

State of Palestine 1 1

Syria 1 2 3

Thailand 1 1

Tunisia 2 3 5

Turkey 1 1 2

Uzbekistan 2 2

Venezuela 1 1

Zimbabwe 2 2 4

Dev. and Transition Countries Total

55 57 112 35.9%

COUNTRY WOMEN MEN TOTAL %

LEAST DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

Afghanistan 1 1

Benin 2 2

Burkina Faso 1 1

Comoros 1 1

Democratic Republic of the Congo 1 1

Ethiopia 1 2 3

Guinea 1 1 2

Nepal 1 1

Republic of the Congo 1 1

Senegal 1 1

Uganda 1 1 2

Zambia 2 2

Least Developed Countries Total

8 10 18 5.8%

OTHER COUNTRIES

Australia 4 4

Belgium 2 2

Canada 4 5 9

Czech Republic 1 1

Denmark 1 1

Finland 2 1 3

France 35 25 60

Germany 14 2 16

Greece 1 1

Hungary 1 1

Ireland 2 1 3

Italy 9 7 16

Japan 2 2

Malta 1 1

Netherlands 1 1

New Zealand 1 2 3

Norway 1 1

Poland 1 2 3

Portugal 1 1

Republic of Korea 1 1

Spain 5 2 7

Sweden 1 1

Switzerland 8 4 12

United Kingdom 11 6 17

United States 8 6 14

Other Countries Total 107 74 181 58.3%

ITC TOTAL 170 141 311 100%

APPENDIX VPROFILE OF ITC STAFF

APPENDICES


APPENDIX VIDISTRIBUTION OF ASSIGNMENTS BY NATIONALITY AND GENDER OF EXPERTS, 2016

FROM

TOTAL WOMEN MEN

NUMBER OF EXPERTS

WORK DAYSNUMBER OF

EXPERTSWORK DAYS

NUMBER OF EXPERTS

WORK DAYS

DEVELOPING AND TRANSITION COUNTRIES

AFRICA

Benin 3 165 3 165

Botswana 1 22 1 22

Burkina Faso 2 148 2 148

Burundi 2 64 1 24 1 40

Cameroon 2 70 2 70

Comoros 2 119 1 69 1 50

Côte d'Ivoire 2 261 1 251 1 10

Ethiopia 9 609 2 412 7 197

Ghana 4 486 1 160 3 326

Kenya 39 1 675 18 839 21 836

Lesotho 4 315 1 25 3 290

Liberia 3 140 2 100 1 40

Madagascar 4 422 3 409 1 13

Mali 2 141 2 141

Mauritius 2 236 1 231 1 5

Mozambique 1 35 1 35

Rwanda 8 912 2 641 6 271

Senegal 3 333 3 333

South Africa 12 336 5 169.5 7 166.5

Sudan 2 35 1 20 1 15

Uganda 19 1 042 10 444 9 598

United Republic of Tanzania 21 983 3 277 18 706

Zambia 8 212 1 35 7 177

Zimbabwe 17 696 3 213 14 483

AFRICA(22.1% of total)

172 9 457 56 4 319.5 116 5 137.5

ASIA AND THE PACIFIC

Bangladesh 8 223 1 28 7 195

Cambodia 2 39 2 39

China 7 516 5 421 2 95

Chinese Taipei 1 190 1 190

Fiji 13 741 5 336 8 405

APPENDICES


FROM

TOTAL WOMEN MEN

NUMBER OF EXPERTS

WORK DAYSNUMBER OF

EXPERTSWORK DAYS

NUMBER OF EXPERTS

WORK DAYS

India 37 2 046 9 864 28 1 182

Indonesia 1 263 1 263

Lao People's Democratic Republic 2 135 1 85 1 50

Malaysia 2 30 2 30

Myanmar 3 356 3 356

Nepal 8 390 1 115 7 275

Pakistan 4 316 4 316

Papua New Guinea 5 543 5 543

Philippines 3 155 3 155

Samoa 1 30 1 30

Singapore 3 31 2 16 1 15

Sri Lanka 2 256 1 204 1 52

Thailand 1 97 1 97

Vanuatu 2 178 1 132 1 46

Viet Nam 3 312 1 30 2 282

ASIA AND THE PACIFIC TOTAL(13.9% of total)

108 6 847 42 3 865 66 2 982

ARAB REGION

Algeria 4 302 1 37 3 265

Egypt 6 135 6 135

Jordan 4 158 2 124 2 34

Lebanon 2 132 2 132

Morocco 23 506 19 120 4 386

Syrian Arab Republic 2 118 2 118

Tunisia 31 1 356 9 365 22 991

ARAB REGION TOTAL(9.3% of total)

72 2 707 31 646 41 2 061

EUROPE AND THE COMMONWEALTH OF INDEPENDENT STATES (CIS)

Armenia 1 240 1 240

Belarus 2 222 1 22 1 200

Kazakhstan 1 60 1 60

Kyrgyzstan 3 382 2 222 1 160

Romania 2 222 2 222

Russian Federation 10 1 033 10 1 033

Serbia 1 25 1 25

Tajikistan 6 467 6 467

APPENDICES


FROM

TOTAL WOMEN MEN

NUMBER OF EXPERTS

WORK DAYSNUMBER OF

EXPERTSWORK DAYS

NUMBER OF EXPERTS

WORK DAYS

The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia 1 6 1 6

Turkey 2 57 1 45 1 12

Ukraine 3 315 2 290 1 25

EUROPE AND CIS TOTAL(4.1% of total)

32 3 029 21 2 140 11 889

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

Argentina 6 365 3 93 3 272

Bolivia 2 52 2 52

Brazil 3 796 3 796

Chile 2 45 1 30 1 15

Colombia 4 332 3 212 1 120

Dominican Republic 2 70 2 70

Ecuador 6 164 2 71 4 93

Guatemala 1 50 1 50

Guyana 1 30 1 30

Honduras 1 207 1 207

Jamaica 3 108 3 108

Mexico 1 80 1 80

Panama 1 15 1 15

Peru 8 768 3 505 5 263

Uruguay 1 12 1 12

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN TOTAL

(5.4% of total)

42 3 094 21 1 960 21 1 134

DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

Australia 11 889 10 764 1 125

Austria 1 7 1 7

Belgium 7 702 1 220 6 482

Bulgaria 2 434 2 434

Canada 12 641 6 335 6 306

Czech Republic 4 322 3 311 1 11

Denmark 1 3 1 3

Finland 4 137 2 115 2 22

France 60 4 521 17 1 071 43 3 450

Germany 21 1 454 9 821 12 633

Greece 1 20 1 20

APPENDICES


FROM

TOTAL WOMEN MEN

NUMBER OF EXPERTS

WORK DAYSNUMBER OF

EXPERTSWORK DAYS

NUMBER OF EXPERTS

WORK DAYS

Hungary 1 35 1 35

Ireland 2 47 1 20 1 27

Israel 2 50 2 50

Italy 20 1 182 10 451 10 731

Japan 2 53 2 53

Netherlands 19 1 403 3 502 16 901

New Zealand 3 172 1 140 2 32

Poland 2 66 2 66

Portugal 1 3 1 3

Republic of Korea 1 60 1 60

Slovakia 1 7 1 7

Spain 11 360 7 250 4 110

Sweden 2 135 1 59 1 76

Switzerland 19 2 046 11 884 8 1 162

United Kingdom 27 1 814 10 514 17 1 300

United States 29 1 491 15 881 14 610

TOTAL DEVELOPED COUNTRIES

(45.2% of total)

266 18 054 117 7 981 149 10 073

TOTAL ALL REGIONS 692 43 188 288 20 911 404 22 275

In addition:

ITC contracted 692 consultants and individual contractors (288 women and 404 men from 104 countries) for technical expertise during 2016.

APPENDICES


APPENDIX VIISCHEDULE OF VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ITC TRUST FUND

DONORS

2015 ($ ‘000) 2016 ($ ‘000)

WINDOW 1 WINDOW 2 TOTAL WINDOW 1 WINDOW 2 TOTAL

Associate experts – Finland - 138 138 - 245 245

Associate experts – Germany - 364 364 - 526 526

Associate experts – Italy - 181 181 - 139 139

Associate experts – Netherlands - 357 357 - 135 135

Australia - 902 902 - 1 147 1 147

Barbados Investment and Development Cooperation

- - - - 54 54

Canada 749 962 1 712 730 757 1 487

Caribbean Development Bank - - - - 60 60

Central European Free Trade Area (CEFTA) - 91 91 - - -

Centre for the Develompent of Enterprise - 88 88 - - -

China 100 400 500 100 400 500

COMESA Clearing House - - - - 254 254

Denmark 2 125 63 2 188 - - -

DHL - 63 63 - 85 85

Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) - 3 027 3 027 - 1 012 1 012

European Union - 6 317 6 317 - 15 503 15 503

FEFAC - 34 34 - - -

Finland 2 116 - 2 116 3 370 - 3 370

Germany (GIZ) - 136 136 - 173 173

Germany 2 353 - 2 353 2 169 - 2 169

Humanist Institute for Co-operation with Developing Countries (Hivos)

- 108 108 - - -

ILO - 160 160 - 183 183

India 50 - 50 50 - 50

International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation - ITFC

- - - - 15 15

Ireland 900 - 900 877 - 877

Islamic Centre for Development of Trade - - - - 25 25

Islamic Development Bank - 570 570 - 800 800

Japan - 347 347 - 49 49

La Corporacion de Promocion de Exportaciones e Inversiones (CORPEI) de Ecuador

- - - - 87 87

Madagascar - - - - 67 67

Mali - 50 50 - - -

APPENDICES


DONORS

2015 ($ ‘000) 2016 ($ ‘000)

WINDOW 1 WINDOW 2 TOTAL WINDOW 1 WINDOW 2 TOTAL

National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS)

- 104 104 - 112 112

Netherlands - 3 052 3 052 - 1 600 1 600

Norway 2 619 - 2 619 - - -

One UN Fund - 726 726 - 156 156

PepsiCo - - - - 540 540

Qatar Development Bank - 725 725 - - -

Republic of Korea - 35 35 - 306 306

Saint Lucia Trade Export Promotion Agency (TEPA)

- - - - 200 200

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines - - - - 43 43

Sime Darby 100 - 100 58 - 58

Stichting IDH Sustainable Trade Initiative - - - - 85 85

Sustainable Agriculture Initiative (SAI Platform)

- 93 93 - 22 22

Sweden 3 669 1 145 4 814 3 479 - 3 479

Switzerland 206 2 731 2 937 - 2 231 2 231

Switzerland/EIF - 244 244 - 167 167

Sultanate of Oman - 27 27 - 27 27

The Mo Ibrahim Foundation - 114 114 - 114 114

Trademark East Africa - - - - 350 350

UNCTAD - - - - 368 368

UNDP - 150 150 - - -

UNEP - - - - 105 105

UNIDO - 110 110 - 88 88

United Kingdom - 9 398 9 398 - 10 066 10 066

Uruguay - 28 28 - - -

USAID - 887 887 - 254 254

Western NIS Enterprise Fund (WNISEF) - - - - 87 87

World Bank - 1 006 1 006 - 848 848

WTO-STDF - 458 458 - - -

Zambia - - - - 145 145

Revolving funds - 781 781 - 698 698

GRAND TOTAL 14 986 36 172 51 159 10 834 40 325 51 159

May 2017Original: English

© International Trade Centre 2017

ITC/AG(LI)/266

The designations employed and the presentation of material in this publication do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the International Trade Centre concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

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