Consultative Meeting With COMESA/LLPI Sponsored Participants During The AALF 2015 Was Held On 22nd February 2015 at Empire Addis Hotel, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The great potential of the COMESA Region in leather sector remains largely unexploited and the continent's leather industry has not kept pace with the substantial growth of leather and leather goods in other developing regions. This could be attributed to number of factors, which include low technical skills and technology, limited availability of financial resources, weak policy base and poor quality raw material among others.
Although the potential for developing intra regional trade in hides and skins, leather and leather products is immense its current status is very law. COMESA - Leather and Leather Products Institute (COMESA/LLPI), organized a one-day meeting to discuss on ways and means of enhancing the intra-regional trade and collaboration, and to get feedback on the Institute’s accomplished activities in 2014 and 2015 Work plan.
The main objectives of the Workshop were to:
- Identify and promote regional leather sector integration;
- Obtain feedback from the region’s major players in the leather sector (private, public and academia) on how best to strategize the Institutes activities in member countries for optimum result
The meeting was attended by 25 participants drawn from public and private sectors, and academia, from Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Sudan, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and COMESALLPI. The private sector participants included tanners, exporters and leather products manufacturers.
The meeting was officially opened by Dr. Mwinyikione Mwinyhija, Executive Director of COMESA/LLPI. In his welcome address the Executive Director highlighted the current state of affairs in the leather sector by indicating that Africa has the potential of becoming a global player in the leather value chain, mainly because of its huge livestock resource base. He emphasized that the demand of footwear in the region is huge and the bulk of these shoes are imported from Asia and the Far East as COMESA’s output of shoes is very low because of a plethora of challenges and constraints resident in the realm of policy, finances, technology, lack of collaboration and inadequate entrepreneurial skills. He then expound on Country Specific Activities towards Regional Leather Development by giving details of Activities and Outputs and Recorded and Expected Impact for each country.
The Executive Director concluded his welcome address by indicating that the Institute is working with its Member States to come up with modalities of unlocking the potential that the leather value chain holds in the region.
Presentations were made on Major Activities Accomplished in 2014 & 2015 Work Plan, Unpacking Leather Value Chain Strategies, and COMESA/LLPI Information Technology (Web Site) Performances & Facilitation of Centralized Storage and Knowledge Sharing Activities .
At the end of the presentations participants made thorough discussions and made useful recommendations for further actions by national and regional stakeholders participating in the process. The following were identified by the participants as way forward to promote the development of the leather sector in the region.
- Improve collaboration and clustering
- Build the image of the industry through publicity and awareness
- Develop and implement Sector specific policies and strategies
- Improve quality of products across the leather value chain
- Improve availability of inputs and accessories
