THE PROGRAMME

Brief

The priority of CDE Strategy in EAF & SAF for the leather sector is on SME development, focusing on the three subs-sectors which constitute the leather sector, that is

1. Raw Hides and Skins;

2. Tanning

3. Footwear and Leather products.

The Strategy will ensure that interventions are demand driven and there is ownership at the enterprise level. It is structured to address and respond to challenges/ constraints in the leather sector and promote interventions which are likely to yield high impact and sustainable outputs.

The Regional and Sectoral Programme Concept of CDE

The CDE gives priority to supporting SMEs via a mainly sectoral and regionally based assistance approach, i.e. the programme approach. The aim is to devise development strategies that are more comprehensive, better structured, better integrated and more consistent. This more efficient and coherent approach towards supporting private sector development will then also aim to achieve greater synergies in the respective country or region and in the respective sector(s). Finally this approach allows CDE to focus its activities and achieve a more efficient utilisation of its human and financial resources.

The programme approach is basically a methodology based on the project management cycle with the four major steps as illustrated below:

It is very important to point out that with regard to the beneficiary group of CDE’s activities, nothing has changed with the adoption of the programme approach, i.e. the focus remains on the private sector enterprises plus the business associations, training institutions and service providers on the meso-level. In fact, this approach will allow CDE to widen its reach and scope towards the beneficiary group as the specific activities within a programme target either:

• One individual or a group of private enterprises

• One individual or a group of intermediary organisations

• An economic sector as a whole

Furthermore the different activities within the programme approach are enshrined in CDE’s mandate of giving technical, marketing and management assistance in the pre-investment as well as in the operational phase, for example:

• In-house training or workshops for technical assistance

• Partnership meetings and participation at fairs for marketing assistance

• Management training, accounting training for general management assistance

• Support for feasibility studies in pre-investment phase

Finally the programme approach in general does not differ that dramatically from CDE’s classical approach of giving assistance to individual enterprises, namely the ad-hoc intervention approach, when looking at the main process steps (see graph below)

The fundamental difference between these two approaches in addressing the challenges of private sector development in the ACP countries is the wider reach of the programme approach coupled with a real learning and continuous improvement process via addressing a whole sector’s challenges over a longer timeframe.

This is why the main line of action of the CDE’s approved strategy is to systematise this global approach within the ordered framework of programmes, into which its support instruments for enterprises, intermediary organisations and consultants will be integrated, with a view to increasing effectiveness.