New development of agro-food small business linkages between Southeast Asia and Western Africa

The paper deals with agro-food trade promotion of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Southeast Asia and Western Africa and between the two regions. The discussion covers (1) the capacity of Southeast Asian and Western African agro-food SMEs to access domestic, regional and possibly global markets and (2) the role of international cooperation (public and private) to promote agro-food SME trade within and outside Southeast Asia and Western Africa, respectively. Two types of South-South trade emerging innovations are identified in the field of SME agro-business matching: (1) the promotion of existing and new business linkages between Southeast Asian and Western African agro-food SMEs (trade, finance and appropriate technology transfer) and (2) the promotion of public-private partnerships to facilitate agro-food SME business linkages between far distant Southeast Asia and Western Africa.