Do support programmes exist today to facilitate this process of organisation and capacity building?
Yes, there are support programmes but, very often, there is a problem of approach with these programmes, which is due to the fact that they do not take account of the production chain in its entirety. Funding agencies only want to work with the poorest and with the local authorities. This creates a rupture in the chain, and the buyers/processors who are not involved in this tend to create parallel chains of custody. Therefore, once the funding agencies go away, everything crumbles. From our side, we also offer support, by, for example, gathering around the same table the European buyers and the ACP producers. Often they already know each other but they only discuss trivialities, such as delivery dates; they do not put their heads together to think jointly about the long-term issues facing the future of the sector, and how to address, each in their own context, issues such as norms, labels, etc. What we are doing is to put these people together in a structured way, to discuss issues tha
