Beschreibung der Beschaffung
This tender involves the supply and management of short-term expert services to the GIZ African Continental Free Trade (AfCFTA) programme, focusing on requests received through the PMU under the EU TAF arrangement. The contractor"s services will be part of the overall programme and will therefore follow the same strategy and objectives. This strategy is a results-oriented approach that requires a high level of flexibility.
The services will be delivered mainly by short-term experts in form of technical and administrative services related to the key intervention areas of the programme in institution building, trade in services, trade in goods, investment, competition policy, intellectual property rights and e-commerce/ digital trade. Furthermore, cross-cutting areas such as sustainability, stakeholder engagement, process management and monitoring & evaluation will be included. Under the EU TAF, the AfCFTA programme is supporting the following four types of beneficiaries with the following objectives/ indicators (examples):
I. The AfCFTA Secretariat
a. Number of awareness and sensitisation sessions (participants, disaggregation)
b. AfCFTA capacity building needs assessment tool established
c. AfCFTA Monitoring and compliance tools established
II. AU Commission
a. Number of regional value chain mappings done
b. Other indicators to be defined
III. Member States / State Parties
a. Number of AfCFTA national priorities or implementation strategies supported
b. Number of interventions to support trade facilitation and value chain development
IV. Continental and regional private sector organisations
a. Number of private sector organisations supported
A short-term expert, referred to as pool manager and employed by the contractor, will be responsible for the management of two pools of experts ("Short-term Expert Pool", STEP) - (1) a pool of technical senior experts and (2) a pool of technical junior experts - and will assess the need for consultancy services in close collaboration with the advisors, coordinators and managers of the AfCFTA programme.
Supporting the wider reporting requirement of the Module, the contractor will need to submit progress reports twice a year, in the beginning and middle of each calendar year. The exact deadlines as well as the format of the reporting will be agreed at the beginning of the contract and might be adapted and improved during the implementation of the Module. However, the reports should include information on the provided services, the costs of these services and the produced outputs and results. Further, the reports should indicate clearly how the activities are linked to and contributed to the module"s indicators, and whether any unexpected challenges had been detected during the implementation process.
The contractor will not be entirely responsible for specific objectives but will contribute to the four key programme outputs of strengthening institutions (output 1), trade in services (output 2), trade in goods (output 3) and investment (output 4) through activities based on specific requests by the project. Each of the mentioned outputs is linked to a module objective indicator and has two output indicators, which the contractor shall contribute to.
During the period of the assignment the contractor will contribute to the above-mentioned outputs and indicators by supporting selected key activities and milestones for the AfCFTA programme grouped in five work packages.
Work package 1: Strengthening institutions, including work with private sector organisations
The contractor will contribute to the output and indicators regarding strengthening institutions especially by supporting selected activities of the Secretariat to facilitate the implementation and/or negotiations of the agreement, preparing national AfCFTA implementation strategies, drafting success stories on learning experiences in setting up institutional bodies and organising public-public or public-private dialogues on policy harmonization/coordination, incl. private sector engagement.
Work package 2: Trade in Services (TiS)
Regarding the output and indicators on TiS the support of the consultant will focus on TiS Negotiations (through support to Member States and the AU in the negotiation process) and on preparing the implementation of the TiS commitments (through support to AfCFTA State Parties and to the Private Sector).
Work package 3: Trade in Goods (TiG)
During the period of the assignment the contractor will contribute to the above-mentioned output and indicators on trade in goods by supporting key activities and milestones of the AfCFTA programme. The overall goal is to strengthen key national/ continental institutions for the implementation of TiG commitments. The focus will be on capacity building (CB) including concept development for institutions on all levels through trainings and workshops. Furthermore, the TiG implementation structures, such as the TiG committees, will be supported.
Work package 4: Investment, competition policy, intellectual property rights, e-commerce
The contractor will contribute to the above-mentioned output and indicators on phase 2 and 3 issues. The objective is to prepare the ground for and support negotiations regarding the protocols on investment, competition policy and digital trade/ e-commerce through research-related activities, capacity development for technicians/ negotiators, and preparation of (side-) events involving the private sector to raise awareness, generate interest and obtain feedback for negotiations. Activities will need to be designed taking into account specifics of the continental, regional and national level.