Client: The Caribbean Forum of the African Caribbean and Pacific Group of States - CARIFORUM | 01/10/2014 - 01/10/2017
Capacity Building within Member States of the Caribbean Forum for ACP States (CARIFORUM) in the Areas of Competition, Procurement and Customs and Trade Facilitation for the Implementation of the EPA
Programme Management
- Establishment of a Project Coordination Unit.
- Defining the project governance and its overall management.
- Planning, implementing, reporting, evaluating and assessing the impact of all activities carried out throughout the life of the project.
- Supporting the Director of the EPA Implementation Unit to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the organisation in the areas being supported by the programme.
Capacity Building and Institutional Strengthening
- Delivery of individual and group country-level baseline needs assessment workshops to determine the up to date situation in each participating Member State in terms of participants’ and institutional needs, absorption capacity and delivery modalities.
- Refinement of the course contents and the development of optimal processes and procedures for the delivery of the training programmes.
- Validation of the revised course contents, materials and proposed delivery mechanisms with the Contracting Authority.
- Twinning regional academic institutions with international training organisations.
- Developing and delivering Training of Trainers (ToT) programmes
- Mentoring the staff of the beneficiary organisations and assisting them to set objectives, goals and evaluation metrics to foster self-sustainability and replicability of the training services.
- Defining a project knowledge management system and systematisation process.
Project Communication and Visibility
- Definition of the key communication and visibility objectives.
- Segmentation of the target audiences, analysis of the communication patterns and selection of the most suitable and cost-effective channels to reach each of the segments.
- Preparation of a range of PR materials.
- Design of the project website.
The rationale for this project is that the Member States of the CARIFORUM region face a variety of challenges in implementing the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) signed with the EU and are thus not in a position to fully exploit the opportunities arising from the agreement. Institutional capacity deficits across the region continue to be the main constraint facing the effective implementation of the EPA obligations and the areas of Public Procurement, Customs and Trade Facilitation and Competition have been selected as priorities for capacity building support to be provided through this project, addressing the implementation capacity deficits that exist in the public and private sectors, at national and regional level.
In addition, and as a result, the effective implementation of the CARIFORUM-EU Economic Partnership Agreement will enhance the progress towards the achievement of regional integration including the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME).
Specifically the project will:
- Undertake a comprehensive baseline needs analysis throughout the region to establish needs, absorption capacity and training modalities and requirements of the targeted beneficiary institutions.
- Provide consultancy services in building capacity for public and private sector stakeholders and staff of CARIFORUM regional organisations in the areas of Competition, Public Procurement and Customs and Trade Facilitation in the context of EPA implementation.
- Prepare training modules and/or programmes, manuals, handbooks and case studies for each thematic area.
- Implement the project activities through placements and technical training using a collaborative approach, with appropriate delivery modalities.
- Undertake evaluation and impact assessments.
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