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USAID/ RCSA - Success Stories
›Supporting the Development of a Free Trade Area
›Support to the Ivory Tracking Initiative
›Promoting Industrial Uses for CassavaSupporting the Development of
a Free Trade AreaIn 2000, RCSA supported a forum where the Southern African Development Community (SADC) set the date (September 2000) for implementation of a SADC Free Trade Area (FTA). Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius, South Africa and Swaziland have submitted implementation instruments; the FTA is in effect for trade among these countries. When the FTA is in place for all countries, it will function as a single integrated market of 200 million people instead of 14 small fragmented markets.
RCSA’s support over the past four years was instrumental in this development. RCSA became involved in negotiations in 1996, when South Africa was threatening to pull out of the process. USAID realized that one of the main impediments to successful negotiations was that most countries lacked the technical expertise to convince decision makers to include the private sector as a partner in the negotiations. USAID efforts are credited with the ratification of the trade protocol that established the basis for the creation of the Free Trade Area.
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Support to the Ivory Tracking Initiative
Conservation of wildlife is the most visible natural resource management issue confronting Southern African nations. Elephants, valued for their ivory and tourist appeal, are a primary issue. Southern African governments have done an effective job of controlling poaching and believe that selling the ivory is preferable to random culling with no economic benefit. They want local citizens to share some of the economic benefits of conservation and aspire to even higher levels of voluntary compliance. In contrast, western nations fear that permitting the sale of ivory will result in a return to widespread poaching because of the inability to control the source and origin of ivory.
In 1992, RCSA funded the development of a comprehensive ivory tracking system. The Bad Ivory Database (BIDS) has the endorsement of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) and has been monitoring seizures of illegal ivory since 1991. The new system also traces the source and origin of ivory from the animal to its ultimate destination. The efficient functioning of this system was instrumental in the decision by CITES to allow Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe to sell ivory stocks in 1998.
USAID funds assisted the Wildlife departments in these countries to install computer-based tracking systems. The systems track the ivory from initial harvest to storage. Data are verified and readily available for regional and international inspection. The system is establishing a sound basis for extending a verifiable accountability system to other wildlife species throughout Southern Africa. Comparisons of elephant herds between nations are now possible, providing data to further facilitate transboundary conservation of wildlife.
The BIDS system has now become the Elephant Trade Information System, an even more sophisticated monitoring tool with a number of component databases, including information on seizures of ivory worldwide since 1989. Other databases hold information on law enforcement efforts, legal trade in elephant products, legal domestic ivory and elephant product markets in range states and consumer nations.
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Promoting Industrial Uses for Cassava
In Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia, a "root crops revolution" is underway. RCSA’s assistance to the Southern African Root Crops Research Network (SARRNET) has supported networking of farmers, industry and researchers and generated basic information to help researchers produce high-yielding, industrial quality varieties of sweet potato and cassava.
When production increased, industry responded. The wood, textile, foods, manufacturing and milling industries in Malawi are currently using about 21,000 metric tons of cassava flour (equal to about 63,000 metric tons of fresh cassava). This use could double in the next three years. Cassava is being used as a low-cost substitute for corn starch or wheat flour. At the macro level, cassava and sweet potato are contributing over 30 percent to the national food balance sheet in Malawi.
Farmers’ incomes have increased significantly from sales to industry. With income from cassava sales, they are purchasing bicycles, livestock and fertilizer and expanding the area they allocate to rootcrops. Chidazi Kateka of Malawi is one example. After the 1997/98 season, he sold his first crop of cassava (12 metric tons from 0.8 hectares) for US$1,062. He was able to build a modern house with burnt bricks and iron sheets from this one season’s crop.
(For related information, read the Success Story: Malawi report on Linking Cassava Farmers with an Industrial Market)
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USAID/ AFR Success Stories
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Updated: Wednesday, January 9, 2002
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Last Updated on: July 19, 2004 |
