Sustainable and Competitive Industrial Development - Unido

A total of 18 sewing machines were purchased ex ante in 2001, under budget
spending pressure, based on the expectation that interventions targeting the
garment sector would be developed later on. Whereas spending under
pressure entails a risk of less efficient use of resources, the decision taken at
the time can be understood, considering the fact that resource endowment in
the programme was limited (and thus ‘loosing’ scarce funds was to be
avoided). However, the envisaged garment related interventions never took
off and the machines remained idle in their crates. No alternative use of the
machines was sought, pending the creation of a multipurpose training center.
As there is no practical use for the machine in the IDSC (leather focused), a
decision on a new destination for these machines is considered important and
urgent.
Results (outputs/outcomes)
The output suffered from lack of funding, with limited seed money; the latter
was used for programming work, leading to a project document targeting
particularly support to women in food processing (2004). To date no funding
was secured for this project. However, using the balance of resources under
the IP, it was decided in 2005 (i.e., rather late in the programme) to start a
pilot project for the same target group, but on a smaller scale, covering a
period of 12 months. The first ToT took place in November 2005. The results
of the pilot experience are expected to feed into an update of the larger
project proposal designed in 2004. Special reference is made to the lessons
to be learned from the capacity of the different counterparts involved in the
pilot project to carry out and sustain such training and advisory activities
beyond the pilot programme (i.e., in the planned larger scale phase).
It is too early to assess the performance of the pilot project which started in
November 2005. The cooperation sought in this pilot project with a range of
stakeholders and with donors/agencies with related assistance is expected to
provide opportunities for synergy.
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