Stories

Equipping TISIs to drive membership and increase revenues

7 November 2016
ITC News
Sharing knowledge and experience at ITC’s Zanzibar workshop

Enhancing the efficiency of Trade and Investment Support Institutions (TISIs) from across East Africa and beyond was the focus of a two-day workshop held by the International Trade Centre (ITC) in collaboration with the Zanzibar National Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (ZNCCIA) on 14-15 September 2016 in Stone Town, Zanzibar.

The aim of the workshop was to share knowledge and experience with participating TISIs from six countries on how to demonstrate value to their members, run better services and how to remain profitable while ensuring sustainability for their organizations.
Many membership-based TISIs also struggle to attract and retain new members. In response, the 17 executives who took part in the workshop benefitted from hands-on training and were equipped with tools to assess and take action on engaging members, measuring results and generating revenue from services. Ultimately, the objective was for the organizations that took part to ensure their financial sustainability and business impact.

Building institutional capacity

For the ZNCCIA and other participating organizations, the workshop was a valuable experience in building institutional capacity to improve their managerial, operational and service delivery. Ms. Munira Humoud Said, Executive Director of ZNCCIA, said: ‘This type of capacity building is essential for our institutions to increase the value addition to our members.’ The workshop helped to raise greater awareness of the importance of results and impact measurement as key performance improvement tools.

James Makumbi, from the ICT Association of Uganda, said that the workshop was highly educational and widened his institutional network. ‘Using this knowledge, I will restructure and put in place systems and processes to deliver,’ he said, adding that it left him highly motivated to further boost the impact of his organization.

As part of its mandate, ITC strengthens the ability of TISIs in developing and transition economies to enable small business export success. TISIs are essential multipliers of private-sector support programmes, assisting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to reach global markets; this applies to Zanzibar and to the other countries represented at the workshop.

The workshop was part of ITC’s AIM for Results institutional development project. AIM for Results is funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. ITC’s Supporting Indian Trade and Investment for Africa (SITA) and NTF III projects contributed to the organization of the workshop.

Learn more about ITC’s AIM for Results project.