Problem Statement:

The VEGA Ethiopia program, focuses on increasing exports, job creation, and facilitation of trade linkages for Ethiopian businesses and increased knowledge of trade issues amongst the Ethiopian public sector through business linkages, business support organization (BSO) strengthening/support, technical assistance for private sector firms, and trade related public sector entities linking to the Ethiopian Diaspora, particularly in the US, for support and trade linkages.

Project Focus:

The purpose of the program is to promote economic development through export trade between Ethiopia, the United States and other international markets.  The VEGA/AGOA+ program will accomplish results under USAID’s Strategic Objective 6 “Market-Led Economic Growth and Resiliency Increased” By increasing trade linkages between Ethiopian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and buyers in the United States and other countries.

Key Technical Highlights:

-    Establishment of an AGOA steering committee compromised of members from the Government of Ethiopia as well as the private sector
-    Establishment of an AGOA information desk staffed by VEGA Ethiopia staff at the Ethiopian Chamber of commerce
-    Database of Ethiopian SME’s ready for export
-    Identification of export products for the US market

Project Methodology:

The VEGA Ethiopia project is a fairly new project (October 2005) and as such is currently in the midst of implementation.

Our first project as VEGA Ethiopia was to bring in a US based handicraft importer as a volunteer to work with some of the women owned handicraft producers in Ethiopia.

The volunteer (Liz Wald of EDI Imports) (www.edimports.com) is a major buyer of products from Africa and as such had extensive experience and knowledge on what is needed to break into the US market and what producers should be doing.

This was the first time that Ethiopian handicraft producers met face to face with a US buyers and as such walked away with first hand knowledge on what is needed from the producers side. Some of the points raised at the workshop by MS. Wald was

•    What is the story behind your product?

•    What is the product used for? What need does it meet?

•    What materials are used in you products?

•    How long does it take to make 10, 100, 1000, 5000 units of your product

•    Why should I do business with you?

Ms Wald covered the points above in detail to give the mostly women producers an overview what they should look for and how to market their products.

Components of Sustainability:

The VEGA project aims to train and equip the various stake holders in Ethiopia on export market fundamentals and especially regarding the US market under AGOA.

The program is working with the Ethiopian chamber of commerce to provide training to all of the members of the organization nationwide on what AGOA is and how Ethiopian SME’s can take advantage of it.

The program is also providing training to members of the chamber staff to develop the skills and tools to give on going advice and support to Ethiopian SME’s after the end of the project. We have initiated a communication of the various stake holders in regards to export development in Ethiopia under the AGOA steering committee which we believe will be able to continue and grow after the VEGA project ends.

Use of Best Practices:  

The one project that we have implemented thus far and one that we can say fits into the best practices model is that of bringing in a US buyer ( http://www.edimports.com/about/founder.php) as a volunteer expert for the handicraft sector.

This has helped us and the project in two ways,

1.    The Volunteer was instrumental in providing valuable information on marketing and ways of breaking into the US market.

2.    Working closely with the VEGA project, the same volunteer were able to create a partnership with one of our clients who are now exporting her products to the US (http://www.edimports.com/products/ethiopia_textiles.php).

With this one component of the program and use of a US based volunteer, we managed to now only train Ethiopian handicraft producers but also helped create a partnership between two women owned business’s, one in Ethiopia and one in the US.

The above example is a prime target of this program and of the USAID mission in Ethiopia of  “increasing trade linkages between Ethiopian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and buyers in the United States”.