The regional consultative forum which brings together public, private sector and academia was held in Port Sudan, Republic of Sudan, between 11th and 13th December 2018.The forum is an annual event in which each Member State presents a report on its achievement and way forward in the leather sector.
Objectives of the forum
- Creating opportunity to share the national and regional leather success stories;
- Building consensus towards innovation, quality assurance and their importance for export readiness;
- Sharing research undertakings by identified players at regional and global level;
- Identifying the key challenges and inventions towards achieving sustainable regional leather sector development;
- Enhancing the leather tanning industry sustainable productions processes, consumption and eco-entrepreneurship;
- Discussing the potential pathway to capacity building and technology transfer from both global and regional perspective.
Members States Presentations
The member states presented country reports of the achievements in 2018 and way forward for the year 2019.Eritrea,Ethiopia,Uganda,Kenya,Tanzania, Rwanda and Sudan gave their presentations.
Presentations highlighted the following:-
The importance of technology transfer and knowledge of the leather sector .
The importance of green liming process with reduction of chemicals .
The achievement and challenges in implementation of the value chain .
The latest technologies and solid waste utilization presented by Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI), India, which included manufacture of leather boards, fertilizers and animal feeds amongst other products .
Collaborative Research Results
The findings of Collaborative Research were presented by Dedan Kimathi University of Science and Technology on adoption of technology by MSMEs; National University of Science and Technology, Zimbabwe, presented findings on use of leather shavings and plant extracts in production of leather boards, Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia presented the importance of design in the sector while Sudan University of Science and Technology presented a progress report on undertakings in the leather sector.
