While frequently overlooked in multilateral processes, trade is an integral part to building resilience and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Trade can simultaneously contribute to the wealth and resilience of the most vulnerable nations and promote a systemic shift towards sustainable production and consumption. Our CEO Salma Seetaroo speaks our experience in this space at #COP26
I am delighted that, as part of our discussion, we are joined online by Ms Salma Seetaroo, the CEO of Cashew Coast, who is one of our panellists and can share perspectives from small and medium enterprises—particularly how they can be integrated in a resilient manner into global value chains.
We are also joined by Mr Sheldon McLean, the Coordinator for Economic Development, Trade and Integration at ECLAC. Mr McLean has been leading the process around the creation of a resilience fund for the Caribbean and exploring innovative opportunities such as debt swaps. We look forward to hearing from him in that context.
I would like to begin with Ms Seetaroo. I hope she can hear us online.
Very good. Thank you very much for joining us.
Your company produces products that rely on nature and climate, and are therefore highly vulnerable to climate change. How has climate change impacted your business, and how have you attempted to stay resilient?
Thank you, Mr Adam. Distinguished speakers, honourable panel members, ladies and gentlemen—good evening. I’m delighted to be speaking with you tonight.
I’m Salma Seetaroo, CEO of Cashew Coast, an integrated cashew business operating in Côte d’Ivoire. We have integrated 5,000 smallholder farmers into an organic supply chain, and we operate our first cashew factory, which processes cashews into kernels and employs 700 people in Côte d’Ivoire, 70% of whom are women.
Let me first turn your question slightly around. We actually invested in this business because of climate change.
The cashew industry is a USD 6 billion industry and grew by 40% last year—even in a pandemic. Consumers are making different choices about their food. They are turning to plant-based sources because of environmental and health concerns. Cashew is becoming central to their diet—whether in vegan milk, vegan cheese, or healthy snacks.
On the other hand, we discovered that the industry is completely dysfunctional. One in two raw nuts is grown in Africa, yet 80% is processed in Vietnam. This means the cashew kernel that reaches a European plate currently travels 20,000 miles, instead of 4,000 miles if it were processed and sourced locally in West Africa.
I was particularly taken aback by this when I discovered it three years ago. We set out to change the dynamic and set a new trend—saving hundreds of thousands of tonnes of CO₂ emissions and creating local jobs where they belong, near the communities that grow the cashews.
This is not to say climate change does not impact us. In a twist of fate, cashew has become even better positioned in West Africa as temperatures rise. Cashew is resilient to drought and requires less fertiliser input compared to cocoa.
By 2050, we expect cashew to become the next substitute for cocoa, sustaining the livelihoods of the smallholders we work with.
But the real issue is resilience: how do we weather changing climate patterns with our smallholders? Intercropping, beekeeping, and better agricultural practices are essential—but how do we convince a farmer, who lives hand-to-mouth, to invest the time and effort to adopt these practices?
Local processing helps integrate the farmer into a value chain and moves them away from the short-term nature of exporting raw commodities out of Africa.
It is also about rebalancing value in the cashew industry. Today it is heavily weighted in favour of roasters, packers, and retailers in Europe—to the detriment of growers and processors in West Africa.
My challenge is to convince European retailers to choose cashews that are sustainably sourced and environmentally friendly—that is, West African cashews.
Thank you for that detailed example of how trade can improve livelihoods for the most vulnerable while also being profitable.
As a follow-up: what are the main challenges you had to overcome when investing in West Africa—a region sometimes perceived as vulnerable? How did you manage to move towards those solutions?
I am speaking here as an African SME. SMEs are at the centre of African economies—we make the African heart beat. Green finance, which I define as finance that supports business practices favouring the natural environment, is extremely difficult for SMEs like ours to access.
I believe the challenge is threefold: the funding itself, the nature of the recipients, and the people allocating the funding.
From a practitioner’s perspective, here is how the policies translate on the ground.
This conference has highlighted that there is not enough funding. I won’t repeat that. Instead, I want to examine how the funding is allocated.
We talk a lot about mitigation projects, but what we are doing in Africa is primarily adaptation: helping Africans become more resilient and use climate change as an opportunity.
For example, I am currently raising money to build a biomass project. Our processing produces shells—a by-product that can be turned into biomass and used to produce our own electricity. From a climate perspective, it is perfect. But it is impossible for me to find funds for this. There is a surplus of funding for solar projects, but not for true adaptation projects like ours.
The money exists, but it is not being channelled to where it is most needed.
The second issue is the form of funding. Development finance institutions lend money to local banks at 2–5%. Local banks then lend to SMEs like ours at 13%. When you are competing in a global supply chain, you cannot be competitive when your cost of capital is 13% and your peers borrow at 2%.
Lastly, the people allocating the resources lack the necessary training.
Local banks often do not understand green finance, sustainability, or ESG frameworks. They need proper training before they receive funds intended for SMEs. Similarly, private equity funds are not interested in SMEs like us because we are “risky”, small-scale, and have low returns. There is a mismatch between the private equity model and the reality of African SMEs.
All of this can be addressed through cheap, long-term funding, allocated transparently by people—preferably African talent—who are trained in ESG and climate finance.
Thank you. I believe you may have already anticipated the final question, but I will ask it nonetheless.
If you had a free hand, what is the one thing you would ask policymakers to do to allow your kind of success to be replicated?
Christmas is fast approaching, Mr Moderator, so I’ll take the opportunity.
I would say: apply a carbon tax to cashews. It is completely unacceptable that cashews travelling 20,000 miles are preferred by retailers, while cashews grown, processed, and exported from West Africa—just three weeks from Europe—are not. A carbon tax would correct this imbalance.
Thank you very much for sharing your practical experiences. On your last point, recent studies by the Economic Commission for Africa show that investing in local and regional value chains and green projects can generate value-added returns of up to 420% and create over 250% more jobs.
In vulnerable countries, such investments truly make a difference—and that is what we want to unlock.