From December 2019 to July 2020, the WACOMP’s national component in Ghana has conducted several activities towards boosting the competitiveness of selected value chains in the country.
Certification process in the cosmetic value chain in Ghana
In partnership with the Ghana Trade Fair Company, WACOMP Ghana organised a conference on the competitiveness of the cosmetics sector in Ghana. The objective of the conference was to sensitize cosmetics producers in the Northern Cluster to the quality standards and procedures recommended by the Ghana Standards Authority and the Food and Drugs Authority.
As part of the 24th International Trade Fair of Ghana held last March, this conference offered the opportunity to sensitise some 50 companies on main registration and certification processes for cosmetics and personal care products.
A small guide has been developed to support producers in complying with these procedures and made available on https://wacompghana.org/publications/technical/.
At the end of the exchanges, it was strongly recommended to organize an international conference on cosmetics in Ghana.
Training on quality and certification schemes for the cassava, mango and pineapple sectors
In December 2019, WACOMP-Ghana facilitated a series of training workshops on the different certification systems to optimize the competitiveness of three priority commodity chains for Ghana, namely cassava, mango and pineapple.
In general, the workshops focused on quality culture from production to farm (for the cassava value chain); good agricultural practices and Global GAP certification (for mango and pineapple value chains); and safety standards (for the pineapple value chain).
A total of 100 producers in the districts of Techiman, Agomeda and Nswam were sensitized on the importance of applying quality principles at the production level in order to increase product quality at harvest time.
Strengthening expertise in cluster development and diagnosis
Within the framework of the national component of WACOMP in Ghana, UNIDO is supporting enterprises as well as business support networks and associations in the cassava, fruit and cosmetics value chains to develop competitive production and manufacturing capacities to enhance their market access.
In July 2019, some 20 cluster development officers from various industrial, trade, export, quality and standardization support institutions have been trained to facilitate and promote collective efficiency within value chains.
At the request of the participants, WACOMP-Ghana subsequently organized an in-depth training on cluster diagnostic study.
In the coming months, the trained experts will conduct cluster diagnostics to identify the characteristics, needs and opportunities in the identified clusters.
