Geographical Indication (GI) options for Ethiopian Coffee and Ghanaian Cocoa

Innovation & Intellectual Property
The Nigerian leather industry has two dimensions: leather tanneries
and leather accessories. The tanneries are clustered in the northern regions
of Nigeria, where livestock rearing is prevalent. Odularu (2008) notes that
“Nigeria is internationally efficient in goat and sheep skin leather exports”,
with the red skin goat of unique quality highly coveted by foreign markets
(USAID, 2002). Odularu further observed that exports in these products
accounted for less than 1% of total exports in 2003. This suggests “that further
development of the sector could result in [increased market access] for these
products” (Odularu, p. 88). Makers of leather-based accessories and finished
products are also located in the Northern region and in the cities of Lagos,
Onitsha and Aba.
3. The research
The study aimed to investigate the feasibility of using communal trademarks to
promote quality, competitiveness and market access of leather and textile products
produced by small entities in Nigeria. The investigation focused on:
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analysis of the framework for the protection of communal trademarks;
identification of specific challenges faced by the producers that could be
addressed through use of communal trademarks; and
identification of potential challenges to the use of communal trademarks.
The study consisted of desktop research combined with a field work component
that used a survey questionnaire and interviews. Leather and textile producers
were chosen for study because of the socio-economic relevance of these sectors
in relation to employment generation and poverty alleviation. In the case of textiles,
their economic importance is inherent in the fact that Nigeria hosts whole
sectors devoted to textile production, which are unique to the country. Second,
the unique African fabrics and materials have distinctive local and international
appeal. Third, the manual, family-based and other operators in the sector who
apply traditional knowledge (TK) in the production processes have to contend
with stiff competition and strong standards in the international market. This
creates barriers to market access that would seem to make intervention necessary.
A 2006 technical report on textile certification under the African Growth and
Opportunity Act (AGOA) noted that although AGOA’s Category 9 scheme for
qualifying folkloric textile products represented an attempt to encourage exports
of small-scale, handmade folklore articles and ethnic printed fabrics, it often
proved difficult to provide the historical and cultural documentation required to
place a garment under Category 9 (WATH, 2006).
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