The Ghana National Chamber of Commerce (GNCCl) says trade associations need financial management, product standardisation, sales coaching, packaging, prospecting, and market research, as well as transportation to optimize operations.

It said the main areas with limited or no service delivery were negotiations and signing of business contracts, transportation, commercial litigation, and direct intervention in checkpoints.

Mr Julius Bradford Lamptey, Head, Research & Advocacy, GNCCI, said this at a validation workshop on a study to assess the priority needs in capacity building of targeted Small Cross-Border Traders and their Association.

The workshop was organised in collaboration with the Trade Facilitation West Africa (TFWA) programme and West African Economic and Monetary Union.

The TFWA Programme aims to improve the free and efficient movement of goods in the region and internationally by reducing the time and cost of trade borne by the private sector in West Africa, and by strengthening regional trading networks' ability to take advantage of these improvements.

The TFWA Programme is a five-year initiative (September 2018 – June 2023) and benefits from a $75 million funding to improve trade facilitation measures in West Africa.

It is also to improve the movement of goods along selected corridors and reduce barriers for small-scale traders and other key stakeholders, especially women, with trade facilitation reforms and programmes.

The Head of Research said the research findings generally indicated that the delivery of service to members was good.

However, he said some of the services required by members were non-available or poorly delivered such as negotiations and signing of business contracts, transportation, commercial litigation, and direct intervention at checkpoints.

Mr Lamptey said focusing on small scale cross-border traders, their main priority needs were capacity building, training, technical assistance, credit-financing.

He said to improve the quality of services, business and trade associations required assistance in quality human resources; networking; business management; financing; technical assistance; and leadership.

"Association executives were asked to prioritise their needs and the top three needs were credit-financing, capacity-building, and technical assistance," he added.

He said the objective of the research was to identify priority needs for assistance, training and capacity of trade associations, along with those representing women traders in West Africa. Specifically, the research sought to deliver support services to small-scale cross border traders and women in particular.

He said it was to contribute to capacity-building and awareness-raising of members of trades associations and contribute to specific policy reforms and implementation either at the regional level or at the Member-State level.

Mr Mark Badu-Aboagye, Chief Executive Officer of GNCCI, told the Ghana News Agency that largely cross-border traders faced a number of challenges over the years.

He said what was stated in Regional agreements was not happening on the ground.

The CEO said their observations were that probably those taking part in the cross-border trade themselves did not even understand the agreement.

"So, what we are trying to do is to help women who participate in cross-border trading to understand the issues with the implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area," he said.

He said the programme was a sustainable way of providing business support services to members of trade associations.