The East Africa Community (EAC) market is gaining increasing importance for value-add natural products made in Eastern Africa. In addition, there is also an increasing openness in the community to buying “products made in EAC”, thus a high potential for SMEs in manufacturing which is quite often overlooked. The progress of the realization of EAC intra-trade provides new growth potential for SMEs manufacturing natural products, due to the ease of access to neighboring markets.

The Upscaling of Manufacturing SME’S in Natural Clusters IIA project aims at upscaling SMEs manufacturing natural products in select clusters in Kenya and Uganda is supported by the Business Scouts for Development Programme (BSfD). The project will provide practical and tailored solutions to the specic challenges posed by the beneciary SMEs through building their capacity in key skills areas and providing much needed linkages to enhance their competitiveness. The programme is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, a German development cooperation agency

Key Project Objectives and Deliverables:

1. To improve the market success chances of SMEs (natural products’ processors) through a holistic scale up approach for increased competitiveness through targeted training and coaching.
2. To create viable linkages for the SMEs with demand creators and nanciers through networking and increased access to information.
3. To increase cluster integration of the project clusters (Avocado and Coconut in Kenya; Moringa and Shea in Uganda).
4. To increase opportunities for contract manufacturing.