CAIRO: The Egypt Crafts Center (ECC), a fair trade organization, announced an increase in exports to LE 250,000, up from LE 75,000 in 2004.ECC General Manager Mona El Sayed announced the 350 percent increase during an event commemorating the end of the Community Crafts Producers and Markets project.The project started almost a decade ago with the goal of enabling artisans to improve their production skills and the quality of products. Since its inception, the project has provided capacity building assistance to 38 handicraft producers associations and groups in 13 governorates. Producers were trained in production management, costing and pricing strategies, record keeping and human resource management, enabling them to compete in local and global markets."Even though the project has come to an end, there are two main outcomes which will sustain the results achieved during the last 10 years, said El Sayed, "This [includes] the establishment of Egypt's first fair trade NGO (Fair Trade Egypt) and the ECC, which has become a financially self-sustainable, independent, non-profit fair trade organization linking small producers with their markets. According to El Sayed, the success of the ECC lies not only in the increase of the volume of its exports - which she believes is still relatively modest - but also in the diversification of the exporters' portfolio. Today, their products are being exported to more than 10 countries including Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, US, France, UK and Canada."The results of our export strategy might not be apparent this year, but they will increase the income levels of producers significantly in the next few years, El Sayed added, "parallel to this strategy, we are also expanding our local market in different parts of Egypt. In addition to its showroom in Zamalek, the ECC has opened an outlet in Basata and has just reached an agreement to display their products in Bibliotheca Alexandrina.The sponsors of the project include the Cooperation for Development of Emerging Countries (Cospe), the North South Consultants Exchange and the Italian Co-operation in Egypt. They expressed their satisfaction with the results of the project, whose expenses hit 172,254 euros in the last three years.It is difficult to measure the results of the project just yet, as the final assessment is still being conducted. Moreover, many of the project's stakeholders find it difficult to measure its success in a tangible manner."The success of the project should not be solely measured according to the sales figures, Fair Trade Egypt's Anne-Marie Poupart Iskandar told Daily News Egypt. "The project focused primarily on building the capacity of producers and establishing a market base, and this cannot be measured today as its impact is more long-term. "A lot of trainings resources were put into humanitarian issues such as responsible environmental practices, occupational safety and fair employment conditions, Iskandar added, "such efforts might not reflect in sales, but are crucial if we want to truly implement fair trade principles. Maria Donata Rinaldi, representative of Cospe - a non-profit Italian organization - told Daily News Egypt, "When the project started, there was a pressing need to improve the quality of crafts production. We have achieved that to a great extent, and now that the context has changed, we would like to move to other fields such as agro products. "There is only so much you can do in the crafts market, said Bassem Saroufim, project manager at Cospe, "and this is why it is important to work on exploring other markets while leveraging on the expertise we have developed in crafts production.
