Series Evaluation Insights for Policy and Programming
The TRAQUE programme in Ghana was a relevant and partially effective but operationally constrained Aid for Trade intervention that strengthened elements of national trade and quality systems, while falling short on more ambitious institutional reforms such as a national accreditation body and warehouse receipt system within the available timeframe. Its experience offers concrete lessons for designing realistic, politically anchored trade related support and for linking quality infrastructure and trade policy more directly to inclusive, pro poor growth.
Context
TRAQUE Trade Related Assistance and Quality Enabling Programme was a European Union financed intervention under the tenth European Development Fund with a total budget of 15 million euro for Ghana. It was conceived against the backdrop of Ghana’s export led growth ambitions, ongoing negotiations around an interim Economic Partnership Agreement with the European Union, and a national agenda for private sector development and quality infrastructure reform.
The programme addressed persistent constraints related to trade policy capacities in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, weak and fragmented national quality infrastructure, and limited readiness of exporters to meet technical barriers to trade and sanitary and phytosanitary requirements in regional and European markets. Geographically, the intervention covered Ghana at national level with an emphasis on Accra based institutions and value chains including groundnuts and other non traditional exports, while also reaching producers and small enterprises in northern regions through grant funded activities.
Strategically, TRAQUE was aligned with the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda, private sector development strategies and regional commitments in ECOWAS, yet its implementation took place in a context of macroeconomic instability, shifting ministerial mandates and incomplete sector coordination. The evaluation notes that while the overall objective referred to trade led pro poor growth, the programme design did not clearly articulate how increased trade and improved quality systems would translate into poverty reduction for specific target groups.
Intervention Overview
TRAQUE was implemented from January 2011 to July 2017 with an operational duration of seventy eight months plus a closure period, under partially decentralised management with the National Authorising Office in the Ministry of Finance as contracting authority and the Ministry of Trade and Industry as lead implementing partner. Technical assistance was provided through a service contract led by Agriconsulting Europe S A with core long term experts and short term specialists.
The specific objectives were to improve trade related capacity and performance of the Ministry of Trade and Industry and related agencies, and to support the National Quality Policy and the related National Quality Infrastructure. The Financing Agreement and its 2013 Addendum defined four main result areas, comprising strengthened trade policy capacity in the ministry and associated bodies, effective institutions for quality infrastructure, establishment of a national accreditation body, and support to warehouse receipt systems as a prerequisite for a future commodity exchange.
TRAQUE used several implementation modalities, including programme estimates managed by the ministry, technical assistance services, four grant agreements with Ghana Standards Authority, Food and Drugs Authority, National Board for Small Scale Industries and Ghana Export Promotion Authority, and supplies contracts for sophisticated laboratory and metrology equipment. The 2013 Addendum increased the budget from 9 to 15 million euro and added the accreditation body and warehouse receipt system components at the explicit request of the Government of Ghana, but without securing the necessary legal and institutional preconditions in time.
Evidence: What Worked
The evaluation concludes that TRAQUE was clearly relevant to national and European priorities in trade, private sector development and quality, and that it provided useful and often high quality inputs in these areas. Capacity building activities, including multiple training modules on trade policy, rules of origin, export promotion and quality management, improved the professionalism of Ministry of Trade and Industry staff and associated agencies, for example by enabling young officials to draft cabinet proposals and by creating a pool of more than fifty assessors in the laboratory network.
On the quality infrastructure side, TRAQUE financed significant investments in equipment for twenty eight laboratories across key institutions such as Ghana Standards Authority, Food and Drugs Authority, Accra Veterinary Laboratory, Plant Protection and Regulatory Services Directorate, Food Research Institute and Institute for Industrial Research, with around 98 per cent of the planned equipment value delivered. These investments raised technical capacities in testing, metrology and conformity assessment, which are prerequisites for compliance with technical barriers to trade and sanitary and phytosanitary measures in export markets.
The programme also supported the drafting and substantial improvement of a National Quality Policy, which provides a framework for reforming the institutional landscape, reducing conflicts of interest and clarifying mandates between standardisation, metrology, testing, inspection and certification functions. Through grants, Ghana Export Promotion Authority, National Board for Small Scale Industries, Ghana Standards Authority and Food and Drugs Authority expanded training and advisory services to firms, including more than one thousand farmers in the groundnut value chain who received practical training on good agricultural and post harvest practices to reduce aflatoxin contamination and meet European food safety requirements.
TRAQUE’s technical advice and analytical work contributed to Ghana’s capacity to negotiate and prepare for the ECOWAS Economic Partnership Agreement and the ECOWAS Common External Tariff, and to position trade and quality issues within broader economic policy debates. The evaluation recognises that positive outcomes from training, equipment and policy work are likely to continue beyond the end of European Union funding, especially as ministry and agency staff apply new skills and laboratories increasingly use the equipment to provide services.
Evidence: What Did Not Work
Despite its relevance and some visible outputs, the programme suffered from serious efficiency problems, especially delays, fragmented management and insufficient result orientation. The evaluation finds that TRAQUE was driven more by budget execution across five implementation instruments than by a clear focus on achieving defined outputs and outcomes, and that the logical framework remained weak in terms of theory of change, result based indicators and monitoring practice, despite being amended.
The 2013 Addendum added two ambitious new components, namely establishment of a national accreditation body and support to a warehouse receipt system linked to a future Ghana Commodity Exchange, which depended on new legislation and institutional arrangements that were not in place. As political commitment to these reforms waned and the Ministry of Trade and Industry reconsidered its priorities, progress on both objectives stalled, leading the evaluation to judge them as unrealistic within the remaining timeframe and to advise discontinuation of the warehouse receipt activities under TRAQUE.
Management capacity constraints in the Ministry of Trade and Industry and the National Authorising Office, frequent staff turnover in government, the delegation and the technical assistance team, and cumbersome procurement and grant procedures contributed to delays in contracting, equipment delivery and grant implementation. The evaluation notes that procurement of metrology equipment was significantly delayed by poor specifications, unsuccessful first tenders and the defection of a supplier, while grant beneficiaries initially lacked experience with European Union rules and under spent their budgets.
Monitoring and steering structures were not used to their full potential. The Steering Committee met only annually and functioned more as a ceremonial forum than as an operational decision making body, with limited private sector participation, while results oriented monitoring missions identified weaknesses early but their recommendations were not systematically acted upon and internal monitoring by the technical assistance team did not generate robust data on outcomes or impact.
Lessons Learned
One central lesson is that complex trade and quality infrastructure reforms require a clearly articulated theory of change that links institutional strengthening to market outcomes and eventually to poverty reduction, supported by realistic timeframes and strong political ownership. TRAQUE’s experience shows that assuming automatic trickle down from trade growth to pro poor outcomes, without specifying preconditions and complementary measures, risks marginalising Aid for Trade interventions within broader economic strategies.
The addition of new components for the accreditation body and warehouse receipt system illustrates the danger of expanding project scope without first securing the necessary legal frameworks, institutional clarity and stakeholder consensus. The evaluation suggests that such reforms might have been better addressed through dedicated projects or regional programmes, and that regional solutions for accreditation within ECOWAS could be more viable than purely national ones.
Another lesson concerns capacity building and institutional change. While training increased individual skills, it did not translate into comprehensive organisational reforms in the Ministry of Trade and Industry, mainly because training was not embedded in a coherent strategic human resources and change management plan and because decision makers did not consistently empower trained staff to lead reforms.
The programme also underlines the importance of robust monitoring and learning systems. The lack of baseline data, quantifiable indicators and systematic result based monitoring limited the ability of stakeholders to steer TRAQUE, to adjust activities in light of emerging evidence and to document impact, whereas approaches such as the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development Standard on results measurement could have provided a useful framework.
Implications for Policy and Programming
For policymakers and donors, the TRAQUE evaluation underscores the need to align Aid for Trade operations tightly with evolving national strategies while retaining realistic expectations about what can be achieved in a given political and institutional context. Future programmes should invest early in co creating a shared theory of change with national stakeholders, including non state actors, and design indicators that capture both institutional performance and business level outcomes, including the experience of small producers and exporters.
In trade and quality infrastructure support, there is a strong case for prioritising consolidation and effective use of existing institutions and equipment before launching new bodies or legal frameworks. Supporting the implementation of the National Quality Policy, clarifying mandates, reducing conflicts of interest and improving access to testing and certification services for small and medium enterprises and farmers appear more urgent than establishing a fully fledged national accreditation body in the short term.
Programming should place greater emphasis on integrating non state actors, including business membership organisations, civil society, consumer groups and media, in policy dialogue and programme governance, so that trade and quality reforms are informed by user perspectives and can build consensus around sustainable economic development paths. Donor coordination mechanisms in private sector development need to be revitalised, and European Union supported programmes should engage more actively with other development partners to share lessons, align approaches and exploit complementarities, for example with initiatives of PTB, USAID and BUSAC.
Potential for Scaling and Transferability
Elements of TRAQUE that focused on laboratory equipment, staff skills and service development have clear potential for scaling and adaptation, both within Ghana and in other countries in the region. The evaluation notes that laboratories that received equipment and training have started to use these assets to provide improved services, sometimes complemented by other development partners, suggesting that further investment in service development, accreditation and outreach could yield additional benefits.
The training and advisory models used by Ghana Export Promotion Authority and National Board for Small Scale Industries, such as tailored manuals, value chain specific training and collective sampling services for laboratory testing, offer templates for supporting small producers and enterprises in meeting quality and safety standards. These approaches could be adapted to other value chains and regions, provided that costs and physical access barriers to testing and certification are addressed.
At a regional level, TRAQUE’s analytical work and policy dialogue experience can inform ECOWAS wide efforts to strengthen quality systems, support regional accreditation solutions and design competitiveness programmes under the eleventh European Development Fund. However, successful scaling requires enabling conditions including sustained political commitment, adequate domestic financing for public institutions, stable macroeconomic management and coherent private sector development strategies.
Methodological Notes
The mid term evaluation was conducted between April and June 2016 over fifty workdays, combining document review, extensive stakeholder interviews and field visits. It followed European Union evaluation guidelines and OECD Development Assistance Committee quality standards, and adopted a utilisation focused evaluation approach that emphasised engagement with primary intended users in the Delegation of the European Union, the National Authorising Office and the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
The team, consisting of a trade and private sector development expert as team leader and a quality policy and infrastructure expert, reviewed extensive project documentation including the Financing Agreement, addendum, interim reports, monitoring reports, grant files and technical studies. Semi structured interviews and site visits covered more than sixty representatives from government institutions, laboratories, private sector organisations, farmers, small businesses, non governmental organisations and other development partners, with geographic coverage including Accra and multiple locations in northern Ghana.
Methodological limitations include the summative character of the mid term review, which came late in the implementation cycle and thus could not fully influence project design, as well as the lack of baseline data and quantified indicators, which constrained impact analysis and attribution. The evaluation could not systematically measure changes in trade performance or competitiveness indicators attributable to TRAQUE, and instead relied on qualitative assessments and triangulation of stakeholder perceptions and available secondary data.
Stakeholder Perspectives
Government stakeholders in the Ministry of Trade and Industry and related agencies generally valued TRAQUE’s technical inputs, especially training, laboratory equipment and support to the National Quality Policy, but they also expressed frustration about procedural complexity, delays and the limited ability to implement more strategic reforms within the programme’s life. Some directors articulated a desire to continue work on outstanding results, such as quality policy implementation, in future cooperation programmes, and called for diplomatic solutions to maintain momentum.
Laboratory managers and technical staff appreciated the modern equipment and training, which they saw as essential for delivering credible testing services for both domestic regulation and export compliance, though they also pointed to issues such as incomplete accessories, installation delays and the need for sustainable financing and maintenance arrangements. Grant beneficiaries highlighted the learning experience associated with managing European Union grants and recognised that, while initial misunderstandings of contractual and financial rules led to under spending, they had built capacity for future collaboration.
Private sector representatives along agricultural value chains, including groundnut producers, recognised the value of training and support in meeting export quality requirements but often perceived aflatoxin contamination and similar issues mainly as problems for European markets rather than domestic health concerns. Development partners such as PTB, USAID and BUSAC saw TRAQUE as a significant but somewhat isolated intervention and expressed interest in stronger coordination and sharing of implementation lessons, particularly in procurement and results measurement.
Key Data Points and Indicators
TRAQUE had an overall budget of 15 million euro under the tenth European Development Fund, increased from an initial 9 million euro through a 2013 addendum. The operational duration was seventy eight months, from January 2011 to July 2017, followed by a twenty four month closure period.
Approximately 5.72 million euro corresponding to 98 per cent of the planned laboratory equipment value had been delivered to twenty eight laboratories by the time of the evaluation, although some accessories and installations were still pending. Four grants totalling around 700 thousand euro were awarded to Ghana Standards Authority, Food and Drugs Authority, National Board for Small Scale Industries and Ghana Export Promotion Authority, with final utilisation rates ranging between roughly 73 and 86 per cent, reflecting under spending partly due to reporting and eligibility issues.
Ghana Export Promotion Authority’s groundnut value chain activities trained about 1090 farmers on good agricultural and post harvest practices to reduce aflatoxin contamination and improve export readiness. The technical assistance core team had a budget of around 4.23 million euro, while programme estimates accounted for 1.5 million euro and monitoring, external evaluation and audit for 250 thousand euro.
Further Resources and Links
The evaluation report references several useful resources for readers who wish to explore related policy and methodological frameworks. These include the European Commission’s evaluation guidelines available at the EuropeAid evaluation methodology site, the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda documents hosted by the National Development Planning Commission, and the National Export Development Programme and National Export Strategy published on the Ghana trade portal.
Stakeholders and practitioners can also consult information on AfT strategies and trade agreements through the Delegation of the European Union to Ghana and ECOWAS websites, as well as documentation on the Donor Committee for Enterprise Development Standard for results measurement hosted by the DCED. For quality infrastructure and accreditation topics, the report points to materials from African regional bodies such as the African Organisation for Standardisation and the Africa Accreditation Cooperation, which provide broader context for Ghana’s efforts.
Report Citation
Weitzenegger, Karsten, and Jacques Cabourdin. Trade Related Assistance and Quality Enabling Programme (TRAQUE) – Ghana (GH/FED/22200, CRIS N° 022/200). Mid Term Review of the Project, AETS Consultants, Lons 2016. international-partnerships.ec.europa.eu/publications-library/mid-term-review-traque-2016_en. Accessed 20 May 2026.
Disclaimer: The author participated in this evaluation. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and cannot be attributed to any affiliated organizations. Portions of the text and images were supported by artificial intelligence.