Recruitment of a Consultant to Support The

Expertise France is the public agency of French international technical cooperation. The agency operates around four priorities:
democratic, economic and financial governance;
security and stability of countries in crisis/post-crisis situations;
sustainable development;
strengthening health systems, social protection and employment.
In these areas, Expertise France carries out engineering and implementation missions for capacity building projects, mobilizes technical expertise and acts as an aggregator of projects involving public expertise and private know-how.

With an activity volume of 233 million euros, more than 400 projects in portfolio in 80 countries, and 63,000 days of expertise, Expertise France focuses its action towards France’s solidarity policy, influence and economic diplomacy.

BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION OF THE ACTIVITY

The African Union Heads of State and Government decided through Decision Assembly/AU/Dec.394 (XVIII) of January 2012 to fast-track the establishment of the Continental Free Trade Area. Negotiations were launched in 2015 in Johannesburg, South Africa and all 55 African countries have been participating in the process. The Agreement Establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was concluded on 21 March 2018 in Kigali, Rwanda and came into force on 30 May 2019.
Article 3 of the AfCFTA Agreement provides that the general objectives of the Agreement are to create a single market for goods and services facilitated by movement of persons to deepen economic integration of the African continent in accordance with the vision of “an integrated, prosperous and peaceful Africa” enshrined in Agenda 2063. The AfCFTA will deliver an integrated continental market of 1.3 billion consumers with aggregate GDP of USD 3.4 trillion. The specific objectives of the AfCFTA are outlined in Article 4 of the Agreement.
Since July 2021, State parties and custom unions to the AfCFTA have started sending tariff offers to the AfCFTA Secretariat. As of today, tariff offers are still missing and some others still need further processing.
Objective and scope of Assignment
Objective
The general objective of the consultancy is to ensure that the Member States and Customs Unions start trading on preferential terms as decided by the policy makers. One of the instruments for start of trading is completion of the Schedules of Tariff Concessions. The objective is to verify whether the submitted tariff offers comply with the adopted modalities. The specific objective also, is to make sure that Member States submit their MFN and trade data that will show whether States Parties have complied with the adopted modalities.
Scope
The general scope of the consultancy is to ensure that Member States and Customs Unions that have submitted their tariff offers that their offers comply with the adopted modalities. The consultant will carry a verification exercise to this effect. This includes cleaning and verifying the data. The consultant will collect, clean and verify MFN and trade data from Member States and Customs Union. In addition, the consultant shall upload the tariff offers, MFN and trade data to the online negotiations tool operationalized by Heads of State and Government in July 2019 in Niamey Niger.
Main

**Responsibilities**:
**The Consultant shall carry out the following activities**:
Verify whether tariff offers submitted comply with the adopted Modalities;
Follow up with Member States and Customs Unions that have not done submitted their tariff offers and trade data:
Collect MFN and trade data for all 55 AU Member States, in close collaboration with institutional partners from the MS;
Perform quality checks and verify that the data provided is clean and verified; and
Upload trade data and draft offers to the on-line negotiations tool.

Presentation of the French au Technical Assistance Facility
As the only recognised continental institution, the African Union is Africa's key interlocutor vis-à-vis its external partners in its areas of expertise, such as diplomatic, economic and security issues. As such, the AU plays an essential role for the continent, carrying a common and shared continental voice. It exerts unifying power by providing a political platform for dialogue, coordination and joint decision-making. It thus acts as a spokesperson for African states to have more consistent common positions with international partners, particularly in international fora. The AU also intends to act as a catalyst for Africa's development by promoting the exchange of experiences at continental, regional and national levels, thereby improving synergies, comparability and wider dissemination of best practices.
The AU and France have engaged in a strategic dialogue since the signing of a declaration of intent on 8 June 2018. In order to give substance to this dialogue and to enshrine it in the long term, EUR 1.5 Million in funding has been granted by the French Development Agency to Expertise France