Capacity Building in Exports SMEs in Emerging and Developing Countries: From Challenges to Expertise Development in the Mango Industry in Burkina Faso

Abstract

The mango industry in West Africa is an important component of the economy. However, despite the enormous potential of mango production in West Africa, mango production in Africa remains the lowest in the world. In 2010, the potential of fresh mango production in West Africa was estimated at 1.374 million with an average growth rate of 8.6% between 2010 and 2012. The export potential to the European Union was estimated at 225,000 tons, while the local market can barely absorb 50% of such production (FAO 2010). The result of this situation is that a big quantity of mangos estimated at 30% of the production is abandoned in the farms. Moreover, there is a big quantity of interceptions and rejections of the mango exports from West Africa, resulting in a declining growth of mango exports from West Africa. Among the challenges that the mango industry and, most importantly, the mango exports have been facing, there is an obvious lack of capacity at the different steps of the value chain of mango industry. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how the lack of capacity in the value chain of mango industry in Burkina Faso has prevented this country to take advantage of the full potential of that industry to leverage more financial resources that it needs for its development. The paper also proposes some strategies of capacity building that can help to improve the performance of exports of Burkina Faso mangos. It stresses especially the imperative necessity of capacity building in training farmers and most importantly exporters in order to meet the quality standards expected on the export markets of the European Union.