COLEACP in Ghana: Sweet potato value chain – support to a new professional organisation The orange-fleshed sweet potato (OFSP) value chain is currently growing rapidly in Ghana, due to both the product’s high nutritional value and growing interest on the international market. A meeting concerning support for the strategic development of the Sweet Potato Value Chain Association (SPVCA) took place in Accra, Ghana at the end of July 2019. This support, provided by COLEACP’s Fit For Market programme,* aims to… +

COLEACP is working to strengthen the gender dimension of our programme activities in recognition of the key position played by women in the ACP fruit and vegetable sector. Golden Exotics kindly hosted a visit by Morag Webb (Special advisor at COLEACP) to their farm and packing facilities. Of particular interest were: • The Sexual Harassment Policy • The BOHESI project, and specific gender-based risk assessments • Adaptations made to working practices and infrastructure to make employment in the banana industry… +

It is the Ghana Mango Week (https://www.ghanamangoweek.com/) in Accra. We were invited to make a presentation on the new European plant health regulation. A workshop was also organised to start the dialogue between public and private stakeholders from the mango industry in order to start the preparation of the national dossier (to be sent to the European Union) outlining the treatments applied and explaining the measures in place to ensure that exported mango is free from fruit fly. This dossier… +

Our training “Good hygiene practices and traceability principles” was a great success thanks to everyone and especially to our two trainers Anna and Saheed and also to Sola for the logistical support. This 4-day training, which took place in Nigeria, will be followed by a second session dedicated to “Health Quality Management”.… +

We are organising a workshop in Gambia with key private and public stakeholders from the horticulture industry to define an action plan to improve the national SPS system. This workshop follows a request for support from the Fit For Market SPS Programme submitted by the Gambian Plant Protection Services.… +

We organized a collective training aimed to technical managers on good hygiene practices and traceability principles in Nigeria. The main objective of this 4 day session was to understand and manage the principles of hygiene and traceability applying on field, transport and packhouse ????????… +

We had a courtesy call meeting this morning at the Embassy of the Republic of Kenya to the Kingdom of Belgium, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the Mission to the European Union to discuss the COLEACP-Fit For Market support for Kenya, one of our main intervention countries. Representing Kenya on the picture : His excellency Prof.Jacob T. Kaimenyi, PhD, EBS, EGH; Ambassador, Richard Githaiga, Agriculture Attaché, and Joshua M. Mugodo, Deputy Head of Mission. Representing COLEACP: Yessie Meyer, Regional… +

We are attending the opening of the First FAO / World Health Organization (WHO) / AU International Food Safety Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The conference has two main objectives :Identify key actions and strategies to address current and future challenges to food safety globally; strengthen commitment at the highest political level to scale up food safety in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. (Re)watch the livestream here : https://www.who.int/f…/international-food-safety-conference/… +

We organized a collective training in Kenya ???????? for food safety managers: “Changes regarding the new version of BRC standard (issue 8)”. Due to the high demand from Kenyan and Tanzanian companies for this topic, a second training session is currently taking place in Nairobi.… +