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Expected
Results:
- Improved
export performance in the three target sectors,
including increased foreign exchange earnings.
- Obtaining
a competitive market niche for selected products.
- Establishment
of benchmarks for quality assurance and increased
quality image of Ugandan exporters.
- Increased
incomes of producers and processors in these
sectors.
- Stronger
institutions in each sector to strengthen the
sectors’ performance.
- Establishment
of a highly effective information base.
Beneficiaries
- The
Government of Uganda, as a result of increased
foreign exchange earnings.
- Rural
agriculture producers, enterprises, and all
stakeholders involved from the processing phase to
the export phase.
- Rural
families, especially rural women.
- Associations
and other supporting institutions involved in the
sectors.
Ugandan
Partners
Sector
level institutions, both private and public sector,
Special Task Force on Export Competitiveness; Sector
Working Groups; Uganda Investment Authority (UIA), and
Private Sector Foundation (PSF).
Geographic
Scope
COMPETE
directly works with 43 of 45 Districts
Fish
Sector:
14 Districts
Coffee
Sector: 36
Districts
Cotton
Sector: 32
Districts
Contact Information
Dr.
C. Anton Balasuriya
Chief of Party, COMPETE Project
18 Clement Hill Road, Shimon Office Village
Unit3, Ground Floor Kampala, Uganda
Tel: (256-41) 346797/8
Email: carana@africaonline.co.ug
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Project
Description
The
COMPETE Project was designed to respond to
Uganda’s urgent need to improve the export
competitiveness of its private enterprises in
international markets so as to increase its foreign
exchange earnings and boost domestic economic activity
and employment. In this effort, USAID is supporting the
government of Uganda’s Medium Term Competitive
Strategy for the Private Sector by providing
technical assistance to the government and private
sector to strengthen the capacity of the private sector
to compete in global markets.
The
COMPETE team was assigned the task of contributing to a
National Competitiveness Strategy by:
- Identifying
several sources of competitive advantage in Uganda
- Analysing
those advantages and designing a strategy for
building on those strengths
- Developing
pilot projects for implementation
Working
with the Government of Uganda’s Special Task Force on
Export Competitiveness, the COMPETE team selected three
sectors in which to develop export competitiveness pilot
projects, i.e. coffee, fish and cotton – each of which
contributes substantially to export earnings and rural
incomes. A fourth sector, information and
telecommunications technology, was also designated a
pilot project in support of creating competitiveness of
the other sectors.
COMPETE
works in each sector in the following ways:
- Defining
the impediments to competitiveness confronting the
sector
- Designing
a short and longer-term strategy for both private
and public sector
- Creating
sector’ Working Groups’ comprised of private and
public sector representatives who can drive the
process of reform
- Developing
and implement work plans that identify actions to be
taken
COMPETE
is designed to focus efforts and resources from a range
of supporting programs and institutions. It works
closely with USAID’S SPEED program which provides
assistance to small business and micro finance
institutions operating in these sectors, as well as
business development services to groups that work with
producers and processors in the coffee, fish, and cotton
sectors. While COMPETE is designed primarily as a source
of assistance to the private sector, it cooperates
closely with government institutions involved in these
sectors to remove barriers and implement necessary
reforms.
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