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ECG Advises Ethiopia on Leather Cluster
Ethiopia is one of a number of countries in Africa beginning to organize its industrial development policies and activities around the concept of competitive clusters. For example, the country is in the second year of a very successful hides, skins and leather cluster initiative. This work is supported by U.S. Agency for International Development with added funding from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization.
A leather cluster working group of 60 private, public and academic leaders is actively engaged in the development and implementation of an array of cluster initiatives whose focus is on quality improvements, marketing initiatives, and capacity building in high value leather garment manufacturing. This work was recently celebrated at the international conference of The Competitiveness Institute. Products from the cluster firm "Taytu" were successfully launched at high visibility fashion trade shows in New York and Paris in 2007.