Short-Term Expert Pools for supporting negotiations and implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA)

Provision of short-term expert pools for supporting negotiations and implementation of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA): The service involves the provision of pools of qualified short-term experts (STE) who can be deployed flexibly according to project demands. The objective is to support the implementation of the AfCFTA at continental, regional, and national levels by providing advisory services and capacity building for governmental, private sector, and civil society stakeholders. Experts will provide demand-driven technical advisory services and/or capacity building to national, regional, and continental government partners and/or the project itself. Services include human capacity development measures and organizational and technical advice in the following thematic areas: removing barriers to Trade in Goods, Trade in Services and Digital Trade; support for further AfCFTA negotiations (among others on Rules of Origin, Trade in Services); support for the ratification of the Phase II Protocols (Competition Policy, Intellectual Property Rights, Investment, Digital Trade, Women & Youth in Trade); implementation of AfCFTA regulations at national and regional levels; monitoring and reviewing the implementation of AfCFTA Protocols in African Union Member States; improving access to trade information for relevant line ministries and the private sector; supporting the African private sector to trade under AfCFTA rules at national and regional levels; supporting relevant authorities to set up inclusive policies for women & youth traders to participate in trade under AfCFTA. The contractor identifies and manages STE pools. Project deployment is Africa-wide, with a national focus in 8 countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda, Tunisia, and Zambia) and at REC level in EAC, ECOWAS, and SADC. Contractor tasks include supporting GIZ in defining required expertise, identifying and proposing suitable experts, selecting experts with the GIZ team, and managing expert deployment. Expected services are technical, operational, and strategic policy advisory services; support in developing, drafting, and reviewing reports, studies, analyses, position papers, guidelines, action plans, strategies, implementation plans, legislation, and regulations; research and analysis; facilitation of private sector participation in policy-making processes; facilitation of national, regional, and continental workshops and conferences (including interpretation and translation services); provision of support services to the project (including optimizing M&E systems, communication materials, workshop moderation, translation, and interpretation services). Deliverables are mainly in English or French, potentially in other official AU languages. Services focus on five work packages: 1. Strengthening the AfCFTA Secretariat's capacity to guide and monitor AfCFTA implementation. 2. Strengthening AUC ETTIM's capacity to support and monitor the enabling environment for production of goods and services for African markets. 3. Supporting the coordination of the AfCFTA implementation approach among selected RECs (EAC, ECOWAS, and SADC). 4. Supporting the domestication and ratification of the AfCFTA Protocols and their Annexes in selected AU Member States. 5. Enabling private sector actors to trade under AfCFTA rules at country and regional levels. Additionally, support for project support services and partner institutions at continental, regional, and national levels under all work packages is required, including communication, moderation, M&E support, translation, and interpretation services. further items as per the tender documents.

Tender documents

Additional details