Regional Facility for Business Development and Investment Climate Eastern Africa, Southern Africa and Indian Ocean

The contract will provide technical assistance services covering 25 countries in Eastern, Southern Africa in order to support interventions falling into three different categories: the macro-level which aims at creating a fertile environment for the private sector to grow, the mid-level which targets interventions at market level, in order to address market failures, enhancing value chains and competitiveness, and the micro-level which works directly with businesses and individuals. Ideally the aim is to have a coherent approach that would include micro-, mid-, and macro-interventions supporting a configuration of the private sector needs in a way that enable it to contribute to economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction.

The purpose of the contract is to deliver high-level technical assistance to strengthen access to finance and implementation of dedicated financial instruments, and improve the investment climate for inclusive and sustainable growth, job creation and decent work.
A Regional Technical Assistance Facility (hereinafter the RTAF), will be established, pooling expertise from Academia, technical experts, practitioners and business managers from Europe and Africa.

For this upcoming regional project AFC cooperates with GOPA Consultants.

The Key Expert 4 will be responsible to ensure visibility to the EU and the Facility in order to trigger requests, and ensure a clear understanding of the objectives and procedures by potential beneficiaries. She or he will support learning and training on business environment reforms, market interventions and support to SMEs among the partner countries, stakeholders and the EU staff (Headquarters and delegation level). Moreover (non-exhaustive list):

• Include the facility in existing donor coordination channels by promoting it to other donors and create possible synergies with their planned or ongoing operations;
• Attend and participate in conferences, events, networks, when there is an opportunity to make a presentation promoting the facility and its achievements;
• Maintain a full-fledged internet site and engage in social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, or Youtube;
• Support learning and training on business environment reforms, market interventions and support to SMEs among the partner countries, selected stakeholders, and the EU staff at HQ and delegation level;
• Collect information based on experiences gained on the ground, draw lessons and collect best practices to be shared with partners;
• Generate knowledge on the basis of the project team internal expertise, and by mobilizing external expertise from international, research or academic organisations, including through the organisation of international or regional seminars;
• Contribute to DG DEVCO learning tools, knowledge management tools, newsletters and guidance materials;
• Support exchange schemes for short term study visit or traineeships in the private sector;
• Provide analysis on previous EU or other partner interventions in Private sector development in order to draw recommendations for future programming;
• Provide assistance to the EU for programming and formulation of projects;
• Carry out research on innovative interventions in the field of business environment reforms and business development;
• Proactively engage on a regular basis with other EU supported facilities to ensure maximum complementarity and synergies;
• Support the organization of events, study-tours and business trips.