Biodiversity & Trade refers to a range of activities that ProFound is engaged in, given the fact that we see the sustainable development of natural resources as a pivotal element of sustainable development.

Economic gains from productive activities should extend beyond a horizon of short-term benefits. For this reason, ProFound supports the design, implementation and review of programmes that aim at sustainable and community-based utilisation of natural resources. This makes biodiversity an important part of our work in trade development and income generation.

Products and sectors that ProFound is well familiar with are agricultural and horticultural products; flowers and plants; natural ingredients for food, pharmaceuticals or cosmetics; Organic, Fair Trade and otherwise certified products; Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFP’s).

For instance, ProFound has been actively involved in the design and implementation of UNCTAD’s Biotrade Initiative and the BioTrade Facilitation Programme (www.biotrade.org), Netherlands Ministry (CBI) Export Promotion Programmes and Market Surveys on Natural Ingredients for Cosmetics and Pharmaceuticals (www.cbi.nl), and more recently the NOVIB Oxfam/RALF Multi-Stakeholder Programme on Natural Ingredients for Food, Cosmetics and Pharmaceuticals in Afghanistan (involving 3 Afghan NGOs, as well as Ministries, Universities and the private sector; see: www.icarda.org/RALFweb/RALF.htm).

ProFound is also a founding partner of the NTFP Exchange Programme for South and Southeast Asia (www.ntfp.org), in which we have been actively supporting the development of Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) for many years as a way to strengthen the income base of indigenous and other local communities. ProFound also facilitates the access to local, national and international markets.

While working with NTFPs and other biodiversity products, we usually take the following aspects into account:
• Social and cultural aspects (including gender)
• Ecological aspects (biodiversity conservation)
• Socio-economic aspects (development at local and national level)
• Macro-economic aspects (development at national and international level)

ProFound's activities in developing NTFPs and other biodiversity products comprise:
• Policy development.
• Strengthening community-based resource management systems, including resource assessment and conservation, sustainable utilisation of biodiversity resources (through jointly designed Standard Operating Procedures, SOPs), and forest rehabilitation.
• Designing multi-stakeholder mechanisms for Sustainable Supply Chain Management, including the development of community-based networks, and of information and data-base development and management systems.
• Value Addition & Product Development: improving collection, harvesting and post-harvest practices; processing technologies for subsistence use (food security) and for (international) markets; fair trade and organic certification strategies.
• Market access facilitation: market research, marketing strategies (incl. certification) and market information systems.
• Legislation and Security of ownership/Control: (land) access and (resource) user rights; (intellectual) property rights; complying with international standards and regulations (market requirements and quality control systems: ISO, GACP, FSC, GMP, HACCP, etc.).
• Building of trust between stakeholders: Value Chain Analysis and Management.
Our international trade promotion aims at generating income earning opportunities for developing countries by facilitating access of their exporters to international markets. ProFound provides support at various levels of the economic process, from analysing the economic context and opportunities to the design of marketing strategies for the products concerned.

We have experience working at company level as well as at sector or national level. Through our activities in various projects and countries, we have established a wide network of experts and organisations.

One of the more recently developed tools that we use in our work is Value Chain Analysis (VCA), which has proven to be a very useful and systemic approach for designing and prioritising product and market strategies. With this VCA, well-informed decisions can be made with respect to where, when and how to add value in the chain from resource to market, and which players in the chain to involve.

Products and sectors that ProFound is well familiar with are agricultural and horticultural products; flowers and plants; natural ingredients for food, pharmaceuticals or cosmetics; Organic, Fair Trade and otherwise certified products; Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFP’s).