Tinashe Makichi, Harare Bureau
The African Development Bank has promised to avail funding for the support of Zimbabwe’s beef and leather value chain technical assistance project.

The overall goal of the technical assistance project is to catalyse Zimbabwe’s economic growth and contribute in addressing the country’s fragility through reviving the beef and leather industry.

In a statement by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, the specific objectives of the project is to increase overall competitiveness of the beef and leather value chain in pilot areas primarily through building stakeholder’s production capacities and enabling them to access local and export markets.

“The funding will look at building the country’s resilience through supporting growth of the beef and leather sub-sector value chain, with emphasis  on value addition, resulting in the creation of employment, income growth, and poverty reduction.

“The specific objectives of the Technical Assistance project is to increase the overall competitiveness of the beef and leather value chain in pilot areas primarily through building stakeholder’s production capacities and enabling them to access local and export markets,” said the Ministry.

“The Republic of Zimbabwe has received a grant from the African Development Bank’s Fund for African Private Sector Assistance and the Transition Support Facility Pillar III to finance the Zimbabwe: Support to the beef and leather value chain Technical Assistance Project.”

Our Harare Bureau understands that AFDB is still finalising the size of funding to be availed for the project.

The project will include a stakeholder platform aimed at enhancing dialogue at national level, among stakeholders (public and private) along  the beef and leather value chain, for coordinated  action.

Another component of the project is the business environment streamlining and reform aimed at facilitating support for the government in its initiative to review and streamline reforms to the existing beef and leather sub-sector policies and regulations fully taking into account the concerns of stakeholders in the value chain.

Under the project, technical support will be provided for the design of a livestock information and  traceability system and also preparation of a proposal for dip tanks construction and rehabilitation and supervision/provision of technical oversight will be executed.

Procurement under the project will include services of a consulting firm to support project implementation, audit services to be provided by an audit firm, monitoring and evaluation services to be provided by an individual consultant.

Zimbabwe’s leather industry is operating at a subdued capacity despite market opportunities in the Comesa region and abroad and this has been due to liquidity challenges faced by companies and lack of working capital.