NUCAFE Evolves Into Facilitator of Coffee Trading on Behalf of Its Member Association (en)

Through NTFII, which seeks to strengthen the coffee value chain, NUCAFE staff received advice and training about business and management which changed the way they were handling business. The team now consists of a chief executive officer who completed a European Business leader’s programme, a deputy CEO who has demonstrated exceptional capabilities in managing diverse business functions and a staff with improved understanding of the new strategic focus.
The process of expanding NUCAFE's capacities began in 2011 by asking farmers about their needs and by auditing the organisation’s management and operations and reviewing its services. A survey of the farmer associations which benefit from NUCAFE's services identified weaknesses such as insufficient service delivery mechanisms, while the audit produced recommendations on redesigning the governance structure, developing a strategic focus in business, measuring corporate performance, redesigning the service portfolio and improving human-resource management and accounting functions.
ITC designed capacity-building interventions to address these needs, enabling NUCAFE to identify its key strategic priorities and develop a business focus which is built on the foundation of empowering the actors in the coffee value chain and has a trading dimension to address the organisation's financial sustainability.
ITC also led a service portfolio design workshop that identified essential areas which NUCAFE can develop over five years, such as targeted services to facilitate access to finance by farmers associations, linking coffee farmers to exporters, developing farmers associations' entrepreneurial capacities, certification and traceability, empowering women in the coffee value chain and advocacy. Future interventions include developing a comprehensive human-resource plan for NUCAFE, revamping the governance structure and strengthening the organisation's accounting function.