About Us

Expanding Community Enterprise and Economic Development or EXCEED is the Training and Advisory Program of the NTFP-EP targeted to support the work of NGOs, government agencies and community-based organizations in the South and Southeast Asian Region on expanding and strengthening livelihoods and community-based enterprises anchored on sustainable resource management in rural, forest and protected areas.

EXCEED offers an array of training courses and advisory services to provide comprehensive support to sustainable community enterprise development, from the start of the initiative including, conducting assessments, program design and development, product and market scanning; during the project, including product development, business planning, systems enhancement, market linking, mentoring; until the end of the project, such as impact evaluation. Special courses are also developed to cover vital and urgent topics that have impacts on communities and their enterprises such as climate change, disaster risk reduction, among others.

The program draws from lessons learned and tested strategies of over 12 years of direct, grassroots work with local organizations and rural and forest-based communities on enterprise development in 5 countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, India, Malaysia and the Philippines. Its approach and tools are derived from an amalgamation of knowledge and experience of 25 organizations and a pool of international experts from a range of background including, community enterprise development, resource management, forest products research, marketing, design and others. The program continuously updates, expands its tools, and builds its knowledge-base on NTFPs, its markets and good practices on sustainable resource management and community-based enterprises through action-based research, case study development, research, pilot projects, exchange study visits, conferences and institutional partnership.