Industrial Competitiveness and Development Support Programme
The United Nations Industrial Development Organization defines it as the capacity of countries to increase their presence in international and domestic markets whilst developing industrial sectors and activities with higher value added and technological content.
The competitiveness of a country’s industrial landscape is at the heart of attracting private investment and sustaining market shares and growth after investment, and remains an indispensable part of the industrialization process in Africa.
Although industrialization is the priority of most African countries, most of them currently rank very low in the Competitive Industrial Index by UNIDO.
The Centre, through its Industrial Competitiveness and Development Support Programme works with specialized multinational institutions to support countries to enhance their industrial competitiveness as part of effort to attract investment to boost intra-African trade.
Industry-Specific Technical Assistance Program
The Industry-Specific Technical Assistance Programme of the Centre is focused on supporting Business Associations and Chambers with the requisite data, information, technical skills and policy options to effectively engage Government in creating an enabling environment to grow their respective sectors.
Investment and B2B Facilitation Programme
Building on the gains of an enhanced Industrial landscape (with the Industrial competiveness and industry specific assistance program), the Centre works with investment promotion institutions to showcase investment opportunities of partner countries, facilitates investment outreaches and promote activities by prospective investors in the country.
The process also involves a conscious effort to support domestic/existing businesses in the industry to scale up investment and production into becoming globally competitive brands in the sector. This is expected to drive the Centre’s sustainable growth and job creation agenda in line with the SDGs and AU Agenda 2063.
Market Access and Export Promotion Support Programme
Various market access opportunities such as the AfCFTA, AGOA, EPA and the UK Partnership offer huge opportunity for businesses, though highly underutilized. A development that is attributable to firm’s limited knowledge of the destination market and in most cases inability to meet rules of origin and sanitary and phyto-sanitary conditions.
As part of efforts at ensuring a more inclusive trade, the Centre works with Export Management and Trading Companies to ensure Micro, Small Medium Enterprises are able to integrate into global value chains and take advantage of market access opportunities.
This is expected to contribute towards increase income of MSMEs and enhance household income particularly for women and youth led businesses in rural Ghana.