By: Dwight Links
The Southern African Regional Leather Network (SARLEN) recently held its inaugural region-wide digital seminar on leather production.
At the seminar, the Sustainable Leather Foundation (SLF) presented on topics on critical positioning elements for the Southern African leather value chain’s sustainability.
“There is opportunity for sustainable processing which creates access channels to new, broader markets. Manufacturers also need a good understanding of the requirements by these markets,” SARLEN explained.
Guest expert speaker Deborah Taylor from the SLF highlighted that her experience with Southern African leather production began with her previous exposure to the Tanzanian leather production sector.
“Back in 2023, we met with the various stakeholders in a cross-sectoral meeting, from abattoirs to footwear makers, to tanneries, and they all highlighted issues within the sector,” Taylor noted.
According to her, the disconnect occurs in the supply chain between the various role-players.
“The footwear companies said they have orders for more shoes, but cannot get enough quality leather. And the tanneries said that they have orders for more leather, but cannot get enough good quality leather from the abattoirs,” she added.
Taylor said the abattoirs in Tanzania also added that they sit with the resource, but do not know how to properly preserve it.
This translates to quality flaying of the hides and exploring how to maintain these hides for tanneries with orders further up the channel.
Taylor recommended that policy development be grounded on pragmatic applications.
“At SLF, we advocate for policy that is based on applicability of these into the real world. One downside of some policy work has been the lack of evidence of how policies impact work on the ground,” remarked Taylor.
Industry Support
Klaus Heinz, GIZ Zimbabwe team leader on leather value-chain, explained that the regional idea came as one to connect production hubs in the region.
“SARLEN began as something that should not be driven by us [GIZ], but rather to see what the level of response would be,” Heinz noted.
Heinz noted that there was a precursor collective known as the Leather Sector Working Group, which morphed into SARLEN.
He shared that GIZ’s role stems from a programme that was created five years ago, initiated by the SADC secretariat to support the leather sector value chain in the region.
“Coming from a programme known as SIPS, the aim was to look into value growth. Starting from identifying specific countries, looking into value growth, raw materials development, increasing capacity utilisation within the operations, and also supporting ESG,” Heinz expanded.
The Support for Industrialisation and Productive Sectors (SIPS), was a programme SADC championed to help achieve the overall 10-year strategic goals of the region for economic development and integration.
SADC’s Regional Integrated Strategic Development Plan prioritises Industrial Development and Market Integration and places industrialisation at the centre of the regional integration agenda.
“The priority of industrial development and market integration aims for an industrialised regional economy that is based on a competitive and facilitative environment, which includes infrastructure, and skills and sustainably exploits its natural resources by leveraging science, technology and innovation,” explains the secretariat.
Heinz noted that the aim of a regional body should be to represent clustered development in order to meet the demands and needs of the integration agenda of the region.
“Over the last four and a half years, we can really look to some success. The biggest challenge was bringing people together under a body/organisation that represents the particular interests of the leather sector,” Heinz added.
According to him, the overall end game is to stimulate trade between the regional partners.
