Leather sector value chain key for bloc
THE Africa Leather and Leather Products Institute (ALLPI) is forging ahead with capacitating Small-to Medium Enterprises in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region and the rest of the continent to foster industrialisation across the leather sector value chain.
In 2015, the SADC Industrialisation Strategy and Roadmap was launched with the bloc aiming to ride on the plan for member states to transform their economies, accelerate economic growth, and create employment while also tapping into markets presented by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
Zimbabwe, which is one of the 16 SADC members and also a member of the 21-nation Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), is seized with revitalising the leather sector.
At its prime in the 1990s, Zimbabwe’s leather sector was thriving, producing up to eight million pairs of shoes, but most established manufacturing companies later folded citing operational constraints.
However, through interventions such as the Zimbabwe Leather Sector Strategy 20212030 to anchor increased investment and maximising value addition and beneficiation to promote export-led industrialisation, the local leather sector is on a rebound.
In an interview on the sidelines of the
SADC Industrialisation Week, ALLPI executive director Mr Nicholas Mudungwe said his organisation, a specialised unit of Comesa, was established to support the development of the leather value chains across markets in Africa.
And through ALLPI, Comesa with development partners support, has been rolling out a regional leather industry capacity building initiatives guided by its 2016-2025 Strategic Plan.
Consequently, Mr Mudungwe said ALLPI had managed to support SMEs to respond and address critical skills and marketing gaps, in particular, training them on designing products of high quality.
“We facilitate acquisition of equipment and we have trained them to work as clusters so that they can buy raw materials in bulk at a lower price.
“We are also working towards establishing what we call a marketing house or a trading house, which will then assist SMEs to aggregate their products and supply retail shops — for example, Edgars, Truworths — in bulk because as individuals they cannot do it.
“We look at it from a cluster perspective where we facilitate joint action in terms of using common facilities.
“For example, in Zimbabwe there is equipment at Gazaland (Home Industry in Highfield, Harare) which the SMEs are using, and before they didn’t have, the machinery,” said Mr Mudungwe.
As part of the broader scope to unlock the potential of SMEs, ALLPI assisted Zimbabwe with the establishment of the Bulawayo Leather Cluster Factory in 2018 while the country in 2021 received US$15 million funding from Comesa to capacitate industrial operations under the leather sector value chain.
Prior to the setting up of the leather cluster factories in Harare and Bulawayo, Mr Mudungwe said some of the SMEs were using rudimentary equipment and machines for clothing to produce leather products.
“We are also working with the Zimbabwe Leather Development Council and Leather Institute Zimbabwe to set up a design studio that will assist SMEs to design and come up with novel top-notch products.
“We have done similar activities in more than 13 African countries and beyond that we also support policies and we have designed strategies for developing the leather value chain.
“Our focus is not only SMEs but to support the entire value chain. For instance, at the moment we are working on a traceability system to understand the source of the animal, the skin until it reaches the market,” he said.
“We also facilitate market connection where we support SMEs to participate in trade fairs and forums like these (SADC Industrialisation Week) and as ALLPI, we have also offered our services to SADC in order to identifying suitable value chains to support because we have developed a cost and methodology that we have offered a one week course to SADC.