Traidcraft Exchange has long been committed to the capacity development of local service providers to meet the needs of small enterprises. This has been an exciting year for the BDS programme building on lessons from 2007-08. In this period our projects have: supported the development of 693 service providers across each of the Traidcraft regions. 19 in East Africa, 644 in South Asia and 30 in South East Asia. Worked with service providers from the private sector, public sector, NGOs and supply chain actors Facilitated the development of services in five key areas including traditional services of business counselling, business training and product development; and new services in fair trade training and agricultural services Actively worked to build sustainable service provision by both building the skills of service providers and by encouraging the demand, and the willingness to pay, for services. This is a challenging area where we beginning to see successes. East Africa The Rwanda Producer Training programme (a consultancy for Shared Interest) has built the capacity of 19 business consultants to provide training and business counseling services to Rwandan crafts producers. The consultants have been trained to work with businesses at different stages of development from start up to those exploring export markets. To date the trainers have worked with 30 producers co-operatives and will work with another 30 in the next twelve months. South Asia (India and Bangladesh) In Bangladesh, the Sustainable Livelihoods for Poor Producers (SLIPP) project has built the capacity of local traders and farmers to provide vital technical services for agri-businesses involved in duck rearing, fish rearing and vegetable production in Netrokona and Mymensingh districts. The project originally intended to train 60 independent business service providers to develop and deliver appropriate services to 1,200 small agri-businesses (duck, fish and vegetables). However, in-depth research in the regions showed that although agri-businesses needed technical services they were either unable or unwilling to pay for services. The project team therefore decided to build service provision into existing trading relationships working with input sellers and farmers. This has proved highly successful in delivering services and in increasing demand for services. Key results to date: 231 input retailers trained as service providers Trained retailers have seen sales of beneficial inputs such as nutrients increase by 100% (compared to only 35% for non-trained retailers) 60 producers have been trained as soil testers for the vegetable sector and producers are paying for this service The EC delegation (which funds this project) has recognized the success of this approach to service development in poor rural communities and invited our local team to give a presentation. The Fair Trade Plus project aims to increase the impact of fair trade on poverty in India. The project has developed the capacity of 9 trainers to support enterprises to understand fair trade, the rights and responsibilities of different actors in the fair trade supply chain and then operate in accordance with these requirements. The project has started this work with 50 crafts producers but will extend this to a further 50 producers over the life of the project. The Sarthee project has developed the capacity of 13 business counsellors/trainers (based in 10 separate non-governmental organisations) to assist pro-poor micro and small enterprises to improve their business performance. The external evaluation of the Sarthee project concluded that, “SARTHEE project has made positive difference in instituting a number of changes in the business operations of Business Development Services providers and through them for Medium Sized Enterprises (MSE’s). Instilling a businesslike approach in the staff members and enabling them inculcate the same among thousands of MSEs is a significant move. There has been a noted change in the management systems including financial controls, application of business counselling skills have contributed to instilling good entrepreneurial practices, improvement in the quality; and strengthening of value chain.” The Samruddhi project has developed the capacity of 15 master trainers working with the Keralan government’s Kudumbashree project to train 316 community based micro enterprise consultants. The external evaluation of the Samruddhi project, which was completed during 2008 concluded that, “Samruddhi has contributed, substantially, to strengthening the enterprise support mechanisms... The project has achieved most of the results that it had planned to. The team of Master Trainers developed by the project were able to conduct training programmes, for creating a pool of Counsellor Micro Enterprise Consultants in all the districts of Kerala, as part of the project... After completion of the training, both the Master Trainers and Micro Enterprise Consultants took to identifying enterprises for providing counselling support. The number of units provided with counselling support has exceeded the target set for the project.” South East Asia (Cambodia and Vietnam) The Sustainable Trade for Social Enterprises (STSE) project has built the capacity of 17 local private sector consultants in the areas of business counselling and product development and the Market Access Programme in Vietnam has worked with 13 business counsellors. The external evaluation of the STSE project concluded that the project had created a pool of local consultants with many of the skills needed to assist handicraft social enterprises. Assessment by the Social Enterprises of the input provided to them shows a high level of satisfaction. The overwhelming majority felt the consultancies were relevant and useful and had helped them. Several had developed new market outlets, others instituted better stock control and improved their accounting procedures One Social Enterprise interviewed by the evaluator was unhappy with the consultancy support, claiming the consultant’s level of expertise was inadequate to fulfil their needs indicating the consultant may have been mismatched. In May 2009 SNV (a Dutch development organization working in Cambodia) contacted three of local consultants to provide in-depth consulting to handicraft producers in Kratie province. If successful, SNV have indicated that they would be interested in funding further work. | 
