Access!

for African Businesswomen in International Trade

At the Kananaskis G8 Summit (June 2002), the Canadian Prime Minister announced the Canada Fund for Africa, specifically designed to support the made-in-Africa New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD). The Fund encompasses a number of programmes, including the “Programme for building African Capacity for Trade” (hereafter called PACCIA/PACT), which is jointly executed by the International Trade Centre (ITC/Geneva) and the Trade Facilitation Office Canada (TFOC/Ottawa).

PACCIA/PACT primarily targets small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), focusing in particular on strengthening the institutional support infrastructure, enhancing enterprise competitiveness, and promoting concrete business opportunities. Action-oriented assistance is adapted to the specific needs of selected African countries. Partner institutions are benefiting from an integrated portfolio of technical assistance tools and capacity-building services offered by ITC, TFOC and relevant Canadian service providers, in areas such as export readiness assessment, trade training, market information and analysis, product development, and matchmaking.

The programme comprises 7 national country programmes, which are complemented by a regional gender and trade programme.  This initiative, entitled ACCESS! for African Businesswomen in International Trade will be offered in five English-speaking countries and four French-speaking countries.

Beneficiary countries:

ACCESS! - Regional Gender and Trade Programme

Gender equality is one of the predominant guiding principles of PACCIA/PACT, and a cross-cutting theme in the activities carried out in each of the country-specific PACCIA/PACT programmes. However, experience has shown that dedicated efforts are required to address the specific needs of African businesswomen in a focused manner so as to level the playing field between the businesswomen and men, in the area of international trade.

For this reason, a specific programme in support of women entrepreneurs has been conceived, that will help address some of the typical constraints faced by women entrepreneurs along the path of exporting: access to training, access to business support services and access to business networks.

Access! for African Businesswomen in International Trade targets African women entrepreneurs who have already attained a fair level of management competence and are actual, emerging or potential exporters.  The programme is providing:

• An exporter trainer programme and strengthened local trade training capacity reaching out to women entrepreneurs, through partnerships with training organizations and/or business associations.

• Ethiopia: Center for African Women Economic Empowerment (CAWEE)
• Ghana: Federation of Associations of Ghanaian Exporters (FAGE)
• South Africa: NAFCOC/Johannesburg Chamber of Commerce and Industry  (NAFCOC/JCCI)
• Tanzania: Women Enterprise Development (SIDO/WED)
• Uganda: Uganda Women Entrepreneurs Association  (UWEAL)

• A mentorship element to complement exporter training with expert advice and guidance to trainees in developing and implementing their export strategies.

• A web portal, facilitating women entrepreneurs’ access to relevant export information tools and services, and providing an opportunity to promote their company’s capabilities.  (Insert  link to the Web portal homepage)

Access! initially involves five English-speaking countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda) and  four French-speaking countries (Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali and Senegal).

A local Situation Analysis has been conducted to better understand the needs and constraints of businesswomen involved in international trade, as well as to identify the supporting infrastructure, programmes and projects in place to address these needs.  The Canadian and African Business Womens’ Alliance (CAABWA) has been contracted to assist in this part of the project.  Subsequently, validation missions have been carried out by ITC/TFOC in each country to select delivery partners and candidate trainers.

This component will follow a two-pronged approach. First, a ‘Training of Trainers’ workshop will be held at the regional level with the identified potential trainers from all participating countries. The first Training of Trainers for the English-speaking countries took place from 20 to 30 June 2005 in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. A gender-focused training programme, which is based on Canadian tools (in particular the Going Global training materials developed by the Canadian Forum for International Trade Training  (FITT) and ITC’s Export Business Management tools is being made available to the trainers at the ToT. In a second step, successful trainers will deliver training sessions for women entrepreneurs in their respective countries. The first of these local training sessions will be carried out with the assistance of a regional Lead Trainer.