The centre, a part of the ILO’s “Productivity Ecosystems for Decent Work Project”, will concentrate on comprehending labour dynamics, enhancing productivity, and implementing sustainable practices within the shea value chain.

The facility will be outfitted with state-of-the-art scientific equipment to facilitate primary shea product testing, student internships, dissemination of shea knowledge, and the establishment of a shea data pool to guide policy and practice.

At a ceremony to share results and certify beneficiary SMEs, the National Project Officer in charge of SME, “Productivity Ecosystems for Decent Work Project”, Samuel Asiedu Onuma, highlighted that the project has provided basic equipment to the beneficiary SMEs in addition to training.

“The project is crucial to the improvement of productivity and working conditions of enterprises. The ILO formulated this programme in collaboration with the workers’ and employers’ unions to improve working conditions and productivity at the workplace. All over the world, productivity has become crucial for us.

“We want to have output increasing because we are having limited resources and increasing output with these limited resources is a challenge. This programme is supporting enterprises to explore opportunities.”

Esther Nambiri, the founder of the Agape Shea Butter Cooperative, noted that the training has led to a reduction in operational costs.

“They trained us on how to organize our processing centres, and also how to treat our workers well, safety and health. If I had gone through this training before starting my business, it would have helped us and saved us a lot of things. When you look at the way we structure our facility like the buildings, we were not following the five ‘s’,” she remarked.

Despite its potential to boost Ghana’s non-traditional export earnings and diversify the sources of much-needed foreign exchange earnings, Ghana’s shea industry is still underdeveloped.

In 2022, shea butter exports were valued at over 92 million US dollars. The Future Markets Insights estimated the global shea butter market at 2.75 billion US dollars in 2023. The ILO, through its productivity ecosystems for decent work projects, aims to increase productivity and tackle the issues that lead to underperformance, given the industry’s potential to create thousands of jobs.

The ILO Productivity Ecosystems for Decent Work is a multi-country initiative launched by the ILO in 2021. It operates in Ghana, South Africa, and Vietnam, and is funded by the governments of Switzerland and Norway. The programme’s goal is to promote productivity growth for decent work.