New: Sustainability Standards Resource Centre (SSRC)

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The Sustainability Standards Resource Centre (SSRC)

A community-owned online platform to increase participation of agricultural producers in sustainable trade. This project is funded by Hivos, the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH), the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), the 4C Association and Utz Certified.

The Sustainability Standards Resource Centre will be a community-owned online platform increasing participation of agricultural producers from developing countries and emerging markets in sustainable trade. The Centre supports these agribusinesses to improve their organisational capacity, ability to manage and control quality and to comply with sustainability standards, codes of conduct and audit protocols.

As many small-scale producer organisations and SMEs will not be able to access or benefit from the Centre’s resources on their own, the primary target group of the Resource Centre are local service providers such as business development services (BDS), trainers, trade promotion organisations (TPOs), consultants and NGOs facilitating the development of sustainable value chains. Interactive functions allow users to review and rate resources, and to discuss and exchange experiences. The Resource Centre also brokers for reliable service providers.

What it is: the SSRC services
The SSRC will provide the following services to its users:

A complete – one-stop-library: the Centre will contain information and material required to provide training, advisory and information services to agribusinesses and producers aiming to improve their organisational capacity, sustainability performance and ability to manage and control quality. This includes access to relevant documentation (document library), access to expertise (yellow pages), capacity development (calendar of events), exchange of experiences (Community of practice) and the latest news.
Quality of content: quality will be ensured through continuous validation of documents by partners and users, based on their actual experiences (rating system).

Who it is: the project consortium
The SSRC project implementation consortium in made of the International Trade Centre (ITC), HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation (Helvetas), Fair & Sustainable Advisory Services (FSAS) and FAQ. This Consortium is a strong, complementary combination bringing the required capacities to make the Sustainable Standard Resource Centre a reality, guarantee quality of work and deliver a user friendly online platform.

What else: more information
For more information please contact Oliver von Hagen at hagen@intracen.org or Marjoleine Motz at marjoleine.motz@fairandsustainable.nl.