81304509 - Trade in Services (TiS), Non-Tarrif Barriers and Trade Facilitation in the Southern African Development Community

The GIZ "Cooperation for Enhancement of SADC Regional Economic Integration" (CESARE) programme through this tender, aims to support further Trade in Services (TiS) liberalisation in the SADC region. The project seeks to increase intra-regional TiS flows, and encourage greater participation of SADC member states on TiS negotiations at SADC and AfCFTA level. The CESARE programme seeks a consultancy firm to implement measures under its TiS project. The tender seeks a range of services that include a combination of technical, advisory services and practical background research. The TiS project aims to enhance the understanding of the SADC Secretariat, Member States and private sector stakeholders of the regulatory barriers to TiS and identifies policy options for TiS liberalisation, including capacitating Member States to develop evidence-based (statistics) TiS policies. The outputs in this tender seeks to sensitise outstanding SADC Member States that have yet to ratify the SADC TiS Protocol of the opportunities to increase TiS flows and emphasise the benefits of increased TiS liberalisation. Activities in this project aims to provide capacity development to the SADC stakeholders to participate in the second round of TiS negotiations and to define binding commitments in the sectors under negotiation including business and distribution services, for liberalisation under the SADC, and AfCFTA protocols. The tender aspires to develop the capacity and awareness of the private sector on TiS through capacity development and awareness raising interventions on export opportunities to galvanise the private sector to participate and support TiS liberalisation. The project aims to support the SADC Secretariat and the Member States to implement the commitments through developing implementation strategies tailored to the member states" needs, technical verification of offers, and developing Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) for professional services. This output further seeks to provides support to MS to undertake necessary regulatory reforms to implement commitments. Further, the firm of consultancy shall provide two (2) pools of regional short-term experts for trade in services and general pools for a broader range of trade topics (e.g. on NTBs and trade facilitation). Under the trade in services expert pool, the tenderer is expected to provide a pool of varied short-term experts with international and regional experience for consultancy services with economic expertise on intra-regional trade in services, regulation of services sectors and pro-poor results of liberalisation, regulation of intra-regional trade in services and sector specific expertise on different TiS services sectors. The tenderer is further expected to provide short term regional and international experts covering following areas of regional integration: trade facilitation, non-tariff barriers, industrialization and competition and investment issues under the AfCFTA.