Cambodia

<p>As part of its &ldquo;Support of Regional Economic Cooperation in Asia&rdquo; (SRECA) Project, GIZ requested the assistance of ITC to set up several SME Trade Academy online courses on trade integration topics and make them available in the four focus countries in their respective national languages. This is taking place in the context of efforts by SCRECA partners to provide online capacity building solutions following the COVID-19 outbreak.</p>

<p>Poor Communities and Trade Programme (PCTP), at the International Trade Centre (ITC), aims to reduce global poverty by strengthening the capacities of developing country micro-entrepreneurs, social enterprises and emerging designers for export trade, in order to connect them with international buyers, in the value chain of ethical fashion, through an inclusive business model.</p><p>PCTP provides technical expertise and business support to informal micro-enterprises and to emerging designers, through a business support infrastructure (based on hubs managed by social enterprises) that enables them to acquire capacities to set up and manage production and quality control systems, logistics and supply chain management, market identification and buyer negotiation skills. This market-based approach to poverty reduction provides micro-entrepreneurs form the informal sector (for the majority women) &nbsp;with the direct benefits of trade by creating jobs and facilitating business opportunities resulting in increased incomes, improved livelihoods and new linkages to the formal economy.</p>

<p>Clothing is one of the largest industries in the world economy employing 60 to 75 million people worldwide. The negative social and environmental impacts of the fashion industry have been well documented, demonstrating that these impacts mostly occur within the upstream portion of the value chain. Improving traceability is a priority in order to determine how and where parts and components in production processes have been sourced and what are the environmental, social and health risks in the value chain. The action will support enhanced transparency and traceability in garment value chains, through the development of an IT &apos;track and trace&apos; platform that offers customized and open self-assessment and data sharing solutions for value chain stakeholders. Alongside the implementation of this platform, ITC will deliver a training and continuous improvement programme and, in collaboration with private sector partners, implement in a subset of textile and garment oriented countries.</p>