Consultant – Trade expert-Seychelles AfCFTA implementation strategy at United Nations Economic Commission for Africa: (Deadline 27 May 2024)

Result of Service

OUTCOMES AND OUTPUTS The successful completion of the assignment will result in the following outcomes and outputs: Outcomes: o Comprehensive National AfCFTA Implementation Strategy: A well-defined national strategy, outlining priority actions and strategies for Seychelles’ implementation of the AfCFTA Agreement across the short, medium, and long term, ensuring alignment with national development plans and in accordance with the Guidelines for developing African Continental Free Trade Area national strategy; o An effective monitoring and evaluation framework integrated into the national strategy, facilitating the tracking of progress in AfCFTA implementation, and ensuring accountability in AfCFTA implementation efforts; o Clear identification of sectors in which Seychelles holds competitive advantages, with strategies for nurturing value chains development to support economic diversification and trade within the AfCFTA context; o Identification of future sectors and industries enabling Seychelles’ integration into regional and global value chains, fostering sustainable economic growth and development; o Strategies embedded within the national implementation strategy to ensure inclusivity, gender sensitivity, youth empowerment, and environmental sustainability throughout AfCFTA implementation efforts; o Recommendations for bridging gaps and strengthening institutional capacities to facilitate effective implementation of the AfCFTA strategy, enhancing Seychelles’ readiness to leverage opportunities arising from the agreement. Outputs: o A comprehensive Inception Report detailing the development process of the national AfCFTA strategy, including objectives, approach, methodology, stakeholder mapping, detailed roadmap, and annotated outline of the final output; o A preliminary version of the strategy encompassing the AfCFTA Agreement and all its protocols, informed by macroeconomic reviews, sectoral analyses, SWOT analyses, and risk assessments; action plans, a communications plan, and a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework should be prepared for stakeholder reviews and validation; o Reports of consultations conducted with relevant stakeholders at national, regional, and local levels, capturing key insights and recommendations; o Collected primary and secondary data necessary to inform the AfCFTA National Strategy, ensuring the robustness of the strategy’s foundation; o Finalized version of the strategy and associated plans, including a financial resource mobilization strategy, reflecting stakeholder feedback and ready for implementation; o Data used in the construction of graphs and charts contained in the strategy to the Ministry and ECA, ensuring transparency and accountability in the strategy development process.

Work Location

Home based

Expected duration

June 1st to Jul 30th

Duties and Responsibilities

Background The agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) signed in Kigali, Rwanda, on 21 March 2018 is a key milestone in Africa’s integration Agenda. The AfCFTA is expected to be a key engine of economic growth, industrialization and sustainable development in Africa in line with the 2030 Agenda adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, and the African Union (AU) Agenda 2063 for “The Africa We Want”. Through elimination of tariffs and removal of non-tariff barriers, the AfCFTA is expected to address fragmentation of African markets. The resulted integrated markets at regional and continental levels will create a conducive environment for efficiency gains from economies of scale and scope, increased competitiveness, better access to, and efficient use of resources, including labor, capital and technologies. These will culminate in greater diversification of African economies and promotion of regional value chains (RVCs). The development of RVCs in turn would contribute to strengthening Africa’s position in global value chains while creating more value-added contents at national and regional levels. The implementation of the AfCFTA will certainly involve adjustments in countries to overcome potential challenges and seize the opportunities offered by integrated markets. Given the significant diversity in the economic configuration of African countries, they will be affected in different ways by the AfCFTA. For example, most competitive and industrialized African economies are better placed to quickly take advantage of the opportunities offered by larger markets. Smaller economies will also benefit from the Agreement by fostering their linkages to RVCs. It is expected however that from the short to medium-run, structural changes through reallocation of factors of production, could entail costs of adjustment. The concerns of potential imbalanced outcomes of the AfCFTA is also among social groups within each country. Most notable is gender inequality in access to, and control of economic resources, which remains a key challenge across Africa. Yet, in the long-run and if the Agreement is adequately implemented, gains from the AfCFTA are expected to outweigh short to medium run costs. A main underlying argument is that by stimulating economic growth and diversification, the AfCFTA will help to generate economic activities for higher value added at domestic and regional levels. These notwithstanding, harnessing the full benefits of the AfCFTA starts with its domestication, ratification by member States being a prerequisite. The benefits of the Agreement, once in force, will not come overnight. Countries would need to identify where their comparative advantages lie for diversification and value chains (for both goods and services) development. This will enable them to design and implement necessary actions with a view to harness these advantages. They also need to identify means to deal with costs adjustment including any adverse fiscal impact that could result from the Agreement’s implementation. These certainly entail for African countries to develop national AfCFTA tailored strategies that are aligned with existing policy frameworks at national, regional and continental levels. The AfCFTA National Strategies will complement the broader trade policy of each State Party to the Agreement and identify opportunities, gaps and steps required for it to take full advantage of continental and global markets while optimizing the AfCFTA induced opportunities. Seychelles ratified the AfCFTA Agreement and deposited its instrument of ratification on 15 September 2019, thus becoming a founding State Party to the Agreement. Following a request from the Government of the Seychelles for support in developing its AfCFTA implementation strategy, the ECA intend to engage consultants to assist the Government in design and development of its strategy. The objective of the assignment is, therefore, to support the Government in developing a national implementation strategy for the AfCFTA It is in this context that the ECA through its African Trade Policy Center (ATPC) proposes to recruit a national consultant to provide necessary support to Seychelles to develop its national implementation strategy for AfCFTA working closely with the lead consultant. Duties & Responsibilities Under the overall guidance of the Director, UNECA Sub-Region Office for Eastern Africa, the direct supervision of the coordinator of the African Trade Policy Center and the direct supervision of the assigned ECA staff member, and working closely with the assigned staff member from the Ministry and the lead consultant, the consultant will undertake the following tasks : I. Assume full responsibility for executing the assignment in accordance with these Terms of Reference (ToRs); II. Support the organization a National Consultative Forum to engage relevant stakeholders in the process of developing the AfCFTA National Strategy and action plans; III. Support the development of an inception report detailing the processes, steps, milestones, etc. involved in the development of the national AfCFTA strategy as per the Guidelines for developing African Continental Free Trade Area national strategies (copies to be made available to the consultant by ECA). The report shall include an interpretation of the ToR including objectives, approach, methodology, stakeholder mapping, detailed roadmap, and annotated outline of the final product; IV. Organize broad and inclusive consultations with all relevant stakeholders at national, regional, and local levels as may be determined in consultation with ECA and, the Seychelles Ministry of Finance, National Planning and Trade and other stakeholders; V. Collect primary and secondary data as necessary to inform the AfCFTA National Strategy; VI. Draft the Seychelles AfCFTA National Implementation Strategy encompassing the AfCFTA Agreement framework and all its Protocols namely, the Protocols on Trade in Goods, Trade in Services, Investment, Intellectual Property Rights, Competition Policy, Dispute Settlement, Women and Youth in Trade, and Digital Trade. The drafting should be informed by but not limited to: o Macroeconomic reviews, sectoral analyses, SWOT analysis, and risk assessments; o Identification of risks related to AfCFTA implementation (e.g. related to revenue loss, macroeconomic venerability, jobs, human rights, the environment, etc.) with appropriate mitigation actions and actionable recommendations; o Identify and analyze Seychelles offensive and defensive trade policy interests within the framework of the AfCFTA; o Identify and assess opportunities for tapping into regional value chains integration and for domestic production and/or further value addition; o Assess national and regional industrialization, production, and export strategies and policies as they potentially impact trade between Seychelles and its trading partners; o Assess institutional capacities, processes and dynamics affecting future implementation of the strategy, identifying gaps and recommend reforms necessary for effective strategy implementation; o Provide an assessment of legislative, regulatory, institutional, and administrative reforms necessary to enable Seychelles to benefit from the AfCFTA; o Ensure inclusivity and draw insights from the experiences of other countries and regional economic communities; VII. Submit a draft strategy including action plan, communications plan, monitoring and evaluation framework, as well as financial resource mobilization strategy for stakeholder review and validation; VIII. Present together with the lead consultant the strategy at a validation meeting organized for the purpose. IX. Support organization of national and regional AfCFTA forums; X. Support the finalization and submission of National AfCFTA implementation strategy and action plan incorporating all the comments from the review and validation meeting and meeting the highest standards of quality, rigor, and relevance; XI. Submit reports of the consultative meetings throughout the strategy development process; and XII. Submit data used in the construction of graphs and charts contained in the strategy to the Ministry and ECA-ECA

Qualifications/special skills

Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or above) in Economics, Trade, Economic Law, International relations or related fields is required. The candidate should have a minimum of seven years of progressively responsible experience in trade, economics or related areas. Familiarity with data analysis using statistical packages is an asset;

Languages

English and French are the working languages of the United Nations. For this post, fluency in English is required.

Additional Information

Not available.

No Fee

THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CHARGE A FEE AT ANY STAGE OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS (APPLICATION, INTERVIEW MEETING, PROCESSING, OR TRAINING). THE UNITED NATIONS DOES NOT CONCERN ITSELF WITH INFORMATION ON APPLICANTS’ BANK ACCOUNTS.