Biotrade Africa - Support to UEBT

completed

This project will partner with the Union for Ethical Biotrade (UEBT) to facilitate low-income farmers' access to international biotrade markets and develop a sustainable Allanblackia supply chain in Tanzania through the following activities: 1. Access to standards verification and certification: The project will identify and build the capacity of local auditors, consultants, and service providers working with UEBT recognized systems, so that UEBT's verification services are available in Southern Africa, where the biotrade market is most developed. The project will also support the development of UEBT's market recognition system for biotrade supply chains. 2. Product and supply chain development: The project will support the strengthening of the Allanblackia supply chain and harvesting groups (farmers, collectors, miller clerks) and capture lessons learned from the groups as suppliers to international markets. In addition, the project will support the identification and negotiation processes with new distributors and buyers in local and international markets, which is expected to result in new contracts signed between small and medium enterprises (SME), responsible for managing, collecting and processing Allanblackia from farmers, and international buyers. New distributors and buyers will be selected based on their availability to invest resources in the development phase of new products, including research of new uses of Allanblackia. 3. Impact monitoring system: The project will test and adapt UEBT's impact monitoring system for the African context. The system will monitor and track impacts at a market wide scale, involving all UEBT's trading members. The project will facilitate the collection, aggregation and analysis of information at the SME level in Africa at both the country and regional levels, which will allow the project to evaluate the impacts in country.