Training, workshops and coaching on SMETA requirements — the final FFM+ activity in Madagascar.
A European buyer asking for a SMETA audit is not asking for good intentions, it is asking for evidence. That is where many horticultural companies struggle: social and environmental requirements are known in broad terms, but translating them into procedures and supporting documents remains unclear. The Fit For Market Plus (FFM+) programme supported SCRIMAD/MPE SA through exactly that step, focusing on the four pillars of the SEDEX-SMETA framework.
From requirements to gaps
The support combined training, practical workshops and coaching. The training covered SMETA-SEDEX requirements, management systems, document control and how audits work. The workshops then applied all of it directly to the company's own situation, through case studies and group work.
The core of the assignment was to identify SCRIMAD/MPE SA's main compliance gaps and define the corrective actions to close them. The result is a compliance action plan setting out, for each measure, the evidence expected — the part companies most often underestimate when they present themselves for an audit.
Then from the platform to the questionnaire
Coaching then turned to the SEDEX platform itself: reading the self-assessment questionnaire, working out which supporting documents to assemble, preparing the answers. The aim was autonomy — that the team be able to complete and update its profile without outside help.
This assignment closes COLEAD's work in Madagascar under FFM+, after several years of support to the Malagasy horticultural sector. The handover is already in place: FFM Africa 2030, for which the grant agreement with the European Commission has been signed, will carry the work forward across Sub-Saharan Africa over the next six years.
This activity is supported by the Fit For Market Plus (FFM+) programme, implemented by COLEAD within the Framework of Development Cooperation between the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS) and the European Union. This publication receives financial support from the European Union and the OACPS. The content of this publication is the sole responsibility of COLEAD and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union or the OACPS.