Resource requirements

ITC can advise Sponsors about the cost of strategy development, building a budget and how to encourage resource contributions from the business community and other stakeholders. The following people each play a key role in bringing a strategy from concept to implementation:

Sector strategy development - Country structure
 

In-country resources

Sponsor
The Sponsor invites ITC into the country and evaluates the level of motivation to develop and implement a strategy at the start. He or she is ultimately responsible for mobilising business leaders and government agency chiefs to take part in its development and contribute to its implementation. This person is usually, an influential representative of government, a business association or chamber, or a trade promotion organisation. The Sponsor provides overall leadership and encourages stakeholders to fully support the process and respond promptly to its needs.

Coordinator
The Coordinator is a key individual in the success of strategy development, particularly during the first steps of the process. He or she must be seen to be independent of stakeholder interests. The Coordinator is responsible for organising and managing the entire process and each workshop, including communications and reporting to the participants, sponsor, stakeholders, and ITC. He or she provides the day-to-day operations leadership to keep the process on track, maintain the quality of the work and engages stakeholders to contribute.

To accomplish these tasks the Coordinator works closely with the Sponsor and a Sector Team. He or she is briefed and coached by ITC in the SHAPE process and may be further supported through regional training seminars, the ITC strategy Coordinators’ network, web site, and a coach on the SHAPE team in ITC. Coordinators often come from a trade support organisation where they have sector responsibilities as part of their normal work activities. An administrative assistant may be needed to support the Coordinator, whose duties will demand about 4 work months of time and for which he or she may be paid if the work is outside their normal duties.

Sector Team
This is a small group, usually of up to nine individuals, one of whom is the Coordinator. The others will be people with long-term experience of the sector in the country and with professional or technical expertise. Each should represent the interests of a key stage in the value chain. They act as a review panel, help to research and prepare the market and business environment overview, review workshop outputs and edit the strategy elements developed by the workshop participants. Some sector Team members will also lead working groups in Step 4 to investigate questions raised in the workshops and examine strategy options. Team members assist the Coordinator with communications and are a source of information and outreach to key stakeholders. The Sector Team’s workload is heaviest during the first 8 weeks of the process and at the end. One member will be appointed as Deputy Coordinator.

Counterpart organisation
A trade support organisation that can provide administrative, information and facilities back-up to the Coordinator and Sector Team and can “host” the SHAPE process for future use.

Stakeholders
All people that are implicated and involved in, or affected by, the strategy, are called stakeholders. The Sector Team must identify at the start those stakeholders whose support is essential to the successful development of a strategy and its implementation. These stakeholders attend the initial consultation and briefing meeting.

Participants
The stakeholders who actually take part in the SHAPE workshops are called “Participants”. These people should either be decision-makers in their own organisations, business owners or industry specialists. They should each represent a stage of the sector such as: producers, manufacturers, suppliers, exporters, business and trade support organisations (freight forwarders, logistics, inspection, finance, packaging and quality institutions), and government agencies (customs, port authorities and involved ministries). Because the emphasis in the workshops is on participants finding solutions for themselves the diversity, enthusiasm and competence of the participants is really important to the quality of the final outputs. A participant in the strategy process commits to contribute his or her knowledge and experience of the sector for a minimum of 10 working days over 5 months, by:
        > Providing information and data about the sector from their own knowledge – but not about their own organisation’s
             competitiveness secrets
        > Joining in, and contributing to, activities with a group of people around a table in the workshops and in plenary debate
        > Joining one of the short-term working groups to investigate specific issues.
 

External resources

ITC inputs, process and technical specialists

ITC assists country counterparts overall with technical market information, process guidance and coaching support focusing on six key areas:
      > Advice at the start on what to do, how to adapt and use SHAPE to suit the sector
      > A consultation and briefing for the Sponsor, Sector Team, Coordinator and key stakeholders.
      > Transfer of the SHAPE Handbook, distance coaching on call, organisational and process support and records back-up
         for the Coordinator
      > ITC international consultant specialists providing: process guidance and co-facilitation of workshops, information
         on markets, sector operation and equirements, review of outputs and evaluation of strategy options (according to needs
         and available funds)
      > ITC missions to co-facilitate each workshop with the local Sector Team
      > Process quality monitoring and technical review of all work outputs and results

ITC specialists travel to the country 3 or 4 days before each workshop to consult with the local team and visit stakeholders.

Other resource collaborators & implementing partners
Development agencies and banks, donors, buyers, government extension services, NGO’s and others are usually invited to participate in the workshops or provide technical inputs during the strategy development or in its implementation.