The program was aimed at capacitating and training natural cosmetics and specialty food suppliers from Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia & South Africa. Beneficiaries received online training on photography, building an online brand presence and export planning to ensure they are ready for market access. Participants also received sales training based on identified gaps in customer retention and concluding sales deals.

Market information in the form of trends reports for the natural cosmetics and handmade sector were created and shared to the enterprises within the programme.

Capacity building was conducted online on digital platforms. Not only was the program focused on training and capacitating enterprises but also providing enterprises with market access through online buyer missions. Enterprises were introduced to buyers in Southern Africa and given an opportunity to present their products during an online buyers tour and walked away with new clientele and skills to enhance their sales.

The capacity building also included creating catalogues for one handmade enterprise, one food producer and one natural cosmetics enterprise in each of the 8 countries. Further to this three look books were created for all 82 enterprises which were shared to 55 buyers across the world. A specially designed website was also designed and along with the catalogues this aimed to increase their brand visibility and provide market access. The digital catalogues (Look Book) were shared with 10 South African companies.

The buyer linkages saw 82 enterprises linked to a buyer through the online buyer missions. Each buyer mission had a panel of buyers in a specific sector, food, natural cosmetics or handcrafted home decor and accessories. From these sessions 14 orders were realized.