The Southern Africa Trade Hub has awarded a grant of US$100,000 to Central African Seed Services (CASS) to purchase equipment for a first-of-its-kind groundnut processing facility in Lusaka, Zambia. The investment is expected to facilitate more than US$6 million of trade.
The cleaning, sorting and grading equipment purchased by the grant will enable Jungle Beat, CASS's long-time Zambian partner, to export surplus Zambian groundnuts to South Africa for the first time, spurring significant growth in production. From Zambia the nuts will also find their way to European markets in a variety of peanut-based products.
Currently there is no company operating in Zambia with the requisite equipment, making it all but impossible for the country's groundnuts to access the more lucrative markets in South Africa and beyond.
In October 2012 and January 2013, the Trade Hub offered gender integration workshops to its staff to provide a foundation in gender concepts and guidance on USAID's Gender Equality and Female Empowerment Policy. Twenty-three staff members (11 female and 12 male) received gender integration training to date, helping to answer the question: What is gender integration and why does it matter? Here are some of the concepts shared in the training:
Activities