UNIDO, Norway agree programme to support countries’ access to global markets
UNIDO and the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) have signed the Global Market Access Programme (GMAP) with a duration of five years and a budget of approximately EUR 10.5 million. The programme document was signed on 19 April by LI Yong, Director General of UNIDO, and Kjersti E. Andersen, Ambassador of Norway to Austria and Permanent Representative to UNIDO. The Managing Director of the UNIDO’s Directorate of Digitalization, Technology and Agri-business, Bernardo Calzadilla-Sarmiento, participated in the signing ceremony.
The GMAP is part of a new generation of large-scale programmatic frameworks between UNIDO and Norway. It is based on the successes and lessons learned during a long history of cooperation, and responds to the recommendations presented in the 2015 evaluation report on UNIDO’s trade capacity-building-related activities, commissioned by Norad.
Guided by relevant Norwegian foreign and development policies, the GMAP has been formulated with an emphasis on strengthening national quality infrastructure and compliance capacities of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Norad’s priority countries in order to support market access for developing countries for selected value chains. The Programme foresees the development of five country-level interventions, which will address quality-related and other barriers to accessing markets at the macro, meso and micro levels, aiming to:
- Enhance the technical competence and sustainability of quality infrastructure-related institutions;
- Enhance SMEs’ compliance with standards and technical regulations; and
- Strengthen a culture for quality.
The first country project developed under the Global Market Access Programme will provide support to the shrimp and tilapia aquaculture value chains in the Colombian provinces of Tumaco and Huila, while a further intervention in support of the honey value chain is scheduled to commence in Ethiopia. Three additional projects are in the process of being formulated, covering least developed countries in Asia and Africa, with expected start dates later this year.
Read the press release here.
For further information, contact Steffen Kaeser (S.Kaeser [at] unido.org (S[dot]Kaeser[at]unido[dot]org))
