PhytoTrade Africa is the commercial name used by the Southern African Natural Products Trade Association, a membership-based organization established in 2001 with support from IFAD. The aim of the association is to develop a sustainable natural products industry in Southern Africa that will be of benefit both to the people and to biodiversity.

The global market for cosmetics and nutraceuticals that are based on natural products is growing rapidly. PhytoTrade Africa works to create economic opportunities for poor rural communities in the dry and marginal areas of the region by linking them to markets for the plant products. The target group comprises mainly women, who harvest natural products such as wild fruit and seeds from common woodlands. The majority of the association’s members are small-scale entrepreneurs and civil society organizations involved in transporting and processing the products and, increasingly, in exporting them.

The work of PhytoTrade Africa focuses on building value chains that connect harvesters with markets, and on supporting and linking up market players along the value chain. In 2006 almost 30,000 rural harvesters — over 90 per cent of them women — sold raw or value-added plant materials to PhytoTrade Africa members for a total value of US$384,000. The revenues make a small but important contribution to building the economic livelihoods of some of the poorest people in the region.

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