Multinational - Enhancing post-pandemic resilience and AfCTFA participation by developing SME and private sector

The proposed project aims to provide technical assistance and capacity building to the national agencies for trade, SME and investment promotion and SME in 4 transition countries, namely Burundi, Comoros, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia. The support intends to address human and institutional capacity gaps in the optimisation of AfCFTA participation by SMEs and engender the streamlining, digitalization and automation of information and services across all related national agencies in the trade regulation chain. The expected outputs for the 4 target countries are: (i) gender sensitive assessment of regional trade readiness; (ii)updated institutional/regulatory framework; (ii)strengthened capacity for SMEs and national agencies on important trade and investment themes such as standards and quality (sanitary and phytosanitary) and AfCFTA trading and engagement;(iii)coordinated trade and investment promotion strategy that is gender responsive across the national agencies for trade, SME and investment promotion through inter-agency cooperation;(iv)established Trade & Investment Observatory & Monitoring software, and centralisation of information collection/sharing across agencies in the target countries; (v)strengthened capacity for the IPA in Burundi. The estimated total cost of the project is UA 2.2 million financed wholly under the TSF Pillar III support. It is scheduled for implementation over a period of 24 months from January 2022 to December 2023.