Kick Off Training to coconut planters and processors in Suriname

The International Trade Centre (ITC), the Suriname Business Forum (SBF) and the Suriname Standards Bureau (SSB) are providing trainings to coconut planters and processors in Suriname in the coming period (2022-23). The Kick Off meeting for these trainings was on Friday, July 22, 2022 at the Lalla Rookh Complex.

During the Kick Off meeting, invitees were informed about the specific trainings for coconut processing, among others. In the upcoming period there will be trainings for business development, and coconut oil production, but also trainings on labeling & packaging, good manufacturing processes and marketing of your products.

The International Trade Centre and Suriname Business Forum given the successful results of a previous project will scale-up interventions through a second project. The focus of this new project will be on:

• Creating and reinforcing producer organizations and support services (product development, value addition, marketing and branding) to be made available to improve coconut producer and enterprise performance, leading to growth and compliance with market requirements,
• Building technical collaboration between value chain operators and guiding Caribbean support services to assist with commercially driven value chain development, and
• Developing better performing and better organized and inclusive value chains and thereby providing tangible outputs and increasing community incomes. The interventions will contribute towards socio-economic sustainability with a multi-channel production and commercialization diversification approach with an emphasis on climate resilience, value capture, diversified product portfolios and market linkages for MSMEs;

In this regard the ITC and SBC signed a MOU with ultimate purpose of to increase smallholder farmer and agro-processor productivity and incomes through better participation in formal markets whilst improving the value chain competitiveness of Suriname’s coconut sector through the implementation of the Alliances for Action (A4A) approach.

Specifically, the purpose of this MOU is to provide the Grantee with financial and technical resources to contribute to the implementation of capacity building activities and to strengthen the Grantee’s ability to carry out enterprise assessments and product development. ITC will grant, an amount up to a maximum of Twenty eight thousand five hundred United States Dollars (US$ 28,500) to SBF.

Under this MOU, the ITC will collaborate with the Grantee to consolidate and scale-up the results of “Coconuts I” in Suriname in particular. This will include three main groups of activities:

• Coconut agro-processor enterprise assessments;
• Capacity building training to coconut smallholder farmer and agro-processors including in the areas of value addition, labelling & packaging, Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), branding and marketing;
• Market linkages support and facilitation of B2B and B2C transactions.

Through this Grant, SBF and SBC officers and staff shall gain further knowledge on ITC’s Alliances for Action (A4A) approach and sustainable production, processing and trade practices for strengthening of the Grantee, with the support of the A4A Value Addition, Market Development and Communications Service Centres in particular.

The International Trade Centre, with Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, is the joint technical cooperation agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations.