IFC Advisory Services' Industry Development program in the Middle East and North Africa builds and strengthens growth industries by supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to participate in high-value, international markets in order to generate employment, enhance income along the supply chain or provide new opportunities for investment in the industry.
In fragile and conflict-affected countries, clusters of enterprises in high-growth industries are supported to improve their production capabilities, quality standards and gain access to new markets. Past and new pipeline projects focus primarily on the agribusiness and construction sectors.
In other countries, the program focuses on creating and strengthening the links between local SMEs and current or potential investment clients. SMEs that are part of potential high-growth value chains are supported with the aim of linking them to international markets or attracting potential investors. The focus is primarily on agribusiness, extractive industries, recycling and retail.
IFC focuses on industries where its value proposition and impact potential is strongest, gearing its interventions towards creating or enhancing the linkages to industries with high value, international markets and strong domestic or international anchor firms.
The program helps industries cooperate to increase business volume, create jobs and generate wealth for the poorest communities by utilizing proven IFC products and services customized to the specific needs of a particular client, industry or country and exploiting IFC’s experience and know-how from 80 countries.
What Does the Program Offer?
The Industry Development program provides assistance to local firms through a holistic approach. This includes diagnostics, analysis and benchmarking to best practices for identification of constraints to the performance of individual companies, entire value chains and clusters of SMEs.
Constraints are addressed and eliminated through complementary and integrated projects. Such projects typically comprise provision of technical assistance and advisory services in one or more of the five main areas:
- Supply chain development and integration: providing services to improve supply chain efficiency and quality in order to increase local sourcing of key anchor firms or to enhance competitiveness of local firms in international markets. This can include supplier finance, distribution and logistics, or extension services
- Quality improvement: supporting local firms to improve and certify their processes and product quality in conformance with recognized quality standards in order to access high-value international target markets
- Production optimization and efficiency: helping introduce new production technology and transfer of know-how, and provide specialized technical training (e.g. production, planning and management, new product development)
- Operations and management training and advice: building management capability and capacity of SMEs to ensure sustainable development through coherent and coordinated development throughout value chains
- Environmental and social sustainability: supporting SMEs to utilize environmental and socially sustainable practices and technologies as enabling business performance improvement tools
The program seeks to enhance the impact of its work by collaborating with other IFC teams engaged in improving the external factors affecting the performance of SMEs (such as improving the regulatory business environment and frameworks for accessing finance).
Expected Outcomes and Impact
The Industry Development program expects to contribute to a sustained competitive advantage for the industry, generating increased income, employment, and investment.
Key Achievements
From the inception of IFC Advisory Services in MENA to the end of fiscal year 2007, the program has been successful at:
- Introducing new processing technologies in the raisins sector in Afghanistan, increasing productivity by 100 percent
- Supporting the development of the olive oil supply-chain of nine oil processing companies and assisting their access to international markets, contributing to the increase of exports by 33 percent
- Facilitating six new export agreements of agricultural traders in Afghanistan, for a total value of over $500,000
- Providing quality improvement advice to more than 400 beneficiaries through 75 workshops
Eligible Partners & Clients
- IFC clients and other large corporations that require supply chain support to increase sourcing from local firms
- Local firms (predominantly SMEs) in competitive sectors that operate in high-growth markets
- Other stakeholders that have significant impact on industry competitiveness, including government agencies, sector associations and financial institutions
Examples of Projects
- In Afghanistan, the Horticulture Export Cluster Development project promotes technology transfer from best practice countries, provides capacity building of farmers, supports traders to provide quality extension services to farmers, and improves access to key export markets. Read more...
- In West Bank and Gaza, the Olive Oil Export Cluster Development project improves the technical capacity and product quality of firms along the supply chain, strengthens vertical links and improves access to key export markets
- In Algeria, IFC is supporting Fertial, a fertilizer producer and an IFC investment client, to provide support to the agriculture sector in the country in order to improve the use of fertilizers and enhance productivity
For additional information contact:
Selcuk Tanatar
Program Manager
E-mail:
stanatar@ifc.org 
