COMESA REGIONAL INVESTMENT AGENCY

REQUEST FOR CONSULTANCY FIRM PROPOSAL

ORGANIZE COMESA IPAs’ INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY

IDENTIFICATION WEBINAR SERIES

February 2021
 REQUEST FOR CONSULTANCY SERVICE TO ORGANIZE COMESA IPAs’ INVESTMENT
OPPORTUNITY IDENTIFICATION WEBINAR SERIES

1. BACKGROUND

COMESA REGIONAL INVESTMENT AGENCY (COMESA RIA)

COMESA Regional Investment Agency was launched in 2006 to promote COMESA

Member States and to increase awareness on their investment incentives,
opportunities, legislation, practices, major events affecting investments and other
relevant information in view of attracting FDI for the sustainable economic
development of the COMESA region, in particular infrastructure development.

The objectives set-out in COMESA RIA’s Charter are as follows:

• To make COMESA one of the major destinations for regional and international
investors while simultaneously enhancing national investment; and
• To carry out other activities in the area of investment promotion, facilitation and
advocacy in conformity with the COMESA Treaty.

Moreover, in terms of functions, the Charter mentions:

• Gather and disseminate information including creation and maintenance of a
database and website. RIA will collect and disseminate, through publications and
its website, detailed information on policies affecting the business environment,
cost of doing business, investment procedures, investment opportunities and other
relevant information in Member States.
• Identify and promote investment opportunities, with special focus on projects with
regional impact; RIA shall identify and promote infrastructure projects and other
investment projects with regional impact.
• Provide training and development support for National Investment Promotion
Agencies in Member States and facilitate capacity building programmes at a
regional level.
• Support the improvement of the national investment environments in Member
States by identifying best practices. RIA shall identify constraints in the investment
environment of Member States and make recommendations as appropriate for
their removal.
• Promote COMESA as a common investment area; RIA will proactively promote the
COMESA and Common Investment Area through several activities including image-
building activities abroad, investment missions, website, advertisement and tailor-
made public relations programmes.

Beyond what is stated in its Charter, COMESA RIA’s working missions since its
inception have been to promote the COMESA region as an attractive investment
destination and to build the capacity of COMESA Member States Investment Promotion
Agencies (IPAs) to attract investment.

Furthermore, while COMESA RIA’s main stakeholders are COMESA Member States’
IPAs as reflected in its Board of Director composition, COMESA RIA’s main targets have
been private sector and main final beneficiaries the general COMESA population.

The COMESA Region

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COMESA is Africa’s largest Regional Economic Community. It was notified as a Regional
Trade Agreement (RTA) to the World Trade Organisation under the Enabling Clause on
29th of June 1995. As of 2019, COMESA became a fully functioning free trade area.
The COMESA Common Investment Area (CCIA) was launched in 2007 and its Customs
Union in 2009, both of which are yet to be operational. Moreover, COMESA is working
towards becoming a Common Market and a full Economic Community. COMESA is one
of the eight regional economic communities recognised by the African Union as the
building blocks of the wider African Economic Community, and of the Continental Free
Trade Area which was launched in June 2015. COMESA Member States are Burundi,
Comoros, DR Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya,
Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Tunisia, Uganda,
Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Secretariat and the
European Union (EU) have signed a Grant contribution agreement of EUR 10,000,000
financed under the 11 European Development Fund (EDF), for the implementation of
the Regional Enterprise Competitiveness and Access to Markets Programme (RECAMP).

The RECAMP is a four-year action that aims at contributing to increased private sector
participation in regional and global value chains. The Programme Overall objective is
to contribute to the deepening of regional economic integration in the COMESA region
through enhancing the competitiveness of the private sector with the Specific objective
to increase private sector participation in sustainable regional and global value chains
by increasing access to markets and improving business and investment climate.

RIA in collaboration with COMESA Secretariat is implementing specific activities under

the RECAMP, of which this activity is expected to be funded.

CURRENT CONTEXT AND RATIONALE FOR THE EVENT

COMESA Member States have made considerable efforts over the past decade to
improve their investment climate and strengthen their investment institutional
framework. As a result, many COMESA Member States have liberalized their
investment regulations and have offered incentives to foreign investors. More
importantly, the economic performance of the region has substantially improved. In
addition, COMESA National Investment Promotion Agencies (NIPAs) have achieved
noticeable improvements in their respective countries’ business and investment
climate and strengthening their capacities in promoting, facilitating both domestic and
foreign investments. COMESA IPAs – among other stakeholders – were able to change
the structure of attracted FDI from concentrating on the traditional natural resources
sectors, to higher value-added activities such as manufacturing and services. Those
industries allowed international investors to supply long-term capital, skills and
technology; and African investment created a virtuous circle that encouraged greater
foreign investment.

The outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a dramatic decline in FDI flows

worldwide. According to UNCTAD, FDI inflows collapsed in 2020 by 42% from USD1.5
trillion in 2019 to an estimated USD859 billion, reaching the lowest level since 1990s.
FDI inflows in Africa was declined by 18% during the same period. UNCTAD also
expected that FDI flows to remain weak due to uncertainty over the evolution of the
COVID-19 pandemic, with 5 – 10% decline in 2021. This is mainly due to the mitigation
measures that countries have imposed such as lockdowns and travel restrictions
among others. In response, countries and Investment Promotion Agencies (IPAs) have
taken swift measures to support and protect both domestic and foreign investments.
The measures include moving part of services online and granting additional incentives
to investors in specific sectors, among others.
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It is now important for IPAs, regional and international organizations in the FDI field
to prepare for the post-COVID-19 era. COMESA Regional Investment Agency (RIA) has
been playing its part. Its activities – investment promotion and capacity – building of
COMESA IPAs – served as enablers which had indirect impacts on the generation of
investments in the region and the ability of Member States to generate investments.
An important mandate of COMESA RIA is promote investment opportunities/projects
available in the region at both country and regional levels. In doing so, COMESA RIA
has been collaborating with COMESA NIPAs and COMESA Secretariat to collect,
categorize, publish and promote investment opportunities available in COMESA
Member States, as regional ones. The collected investment opportunities were
designed in a form of an annual publication that is being circulated among FDI
stakeholders including potential investors through RIA’s organized events, COMESA
RIA’s partners’ events, RIA’s online platform and social media channels. Furthermore,
online campaigns were designed targeted potential investors per sector.

However, it is important to note that without a comprehensive investment

project/opportunity offer, the aforementioned efforts will not be as effective as
expected. Hence, there is a need to build the capacities of COMESA NIPAs on different
techniques and world best practices in investment opportunity profiling so that
potential investors (new and existing) can be provided with concrete options for
greenfield investments or re-investments.

2. OBJECTIVE OF THE CONSULTANCY

The overall objective is to strengthen the capacity of COMESA National Investment
Promotion Agencies (NIPAs) in identifying, collecting data and information, packaging
and promoting comprehensive investment project/opportunity offer for potential
investors.

Outputs
• The participants are able to:
o Understand what is an investment opportunity;
o Identify bankable Investment project/investment opportunities in line
with country’s development agenda;
o Data/information needed to create a complete investment opportunity
profile;
o Best practices in investment opportunities profiling and projects
identification;
o Build investment opportunity profiling templates;
o Data frequently required by investors to facilitate their investment-
decision making process;
o How to present a comprehensive investment project/opportunity offer
for an investor;
o How to collect, categorize, publish and promote investment
opportunities available in their respective Member State; and
o Efficient techniques to create awareness of existing investment
opportunities and attracting investors.

3. SCOPE OF SERVICES
Given the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, travel restrictions imposed by countries
worldwide, and the importance and higher impact of physical presence workshops, the
consultancy firm is expected to deliver (not limited to) the following:
1) A series of online workshops (webinars) to COMESA NIPAs. The webinars are
expected to cover various aspects of investment opportunities profiling
including the following:
a. Introduction/definition of investment opportunities;
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 b. Importance of investment opportunity/project profiling including
practical examples from the COMESA region and worldwide;
c. Extended and summarized investment opportunity/project templates to
be used through various investment promotion and facilitation stages;
d. Packaging investment opportunities/projects;
e. Tools and techniques necessary to promote investment projects during
and post COVID-19.

2) Given the limitation of online capacity building webinars and to allow greater
levels of interaction between the experts and participants, the COMESA
Member IPAs were grouped as follows:
- Group 1: Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and Sudan
- Group 2: Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Somalia
- Group 3: DR Congo, Burundi, Comoros
- Group 4: Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda
- Group 5: Zambia, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Eswatini
- Group 6: Madagascar, Seychelles and Mauritius

It is expected that each group shall receive the training as mentioned above. It is also
important to note that some of the groups may require French interpretation during
the webinars.

3) Preparation and Execution Activities:

- Identify a short list of successful models and best practices for Investment
opportunities profiling in COMESA Member States and globally.
- Consider seeking support from international organizations and private
sector experienced in the field.
- Design the webinars flow and methodology in collaboration with COMESA
Regional Investment Agency (RIA).
- Invite Heads and CEOs of Member NIPAs implementing successful
Investment opportunities profiling models to speak at the webinars in
collaboration with COMESA RIA, if needed.
- Design the webinars’ detailed flow and structure for 1.30 – 2 hrs. per
webinar.
- Design and prepare all relevant supporting materials for sessions and
participants.
- Organize interactive sessions with a view to putting the theory into practice
- Capture and document the webinars proceedings.
- Document the outcome of the webinars.
- Develop and circulate Needs Assessment and evaluation survey among
event participants, receive and categorise responses.
- Manage the registration and troubleshoot participation issues with the
assistance RIA.
- Produce a final report of professional standard for publication and
dissemination to participants and key stakeholders following each webinar
series.

4. DELIVERABLES
Expected deliverables are as follows:
• Finalized agenda/program of activities for the webinars, developed in
consultation with RIA.
• PowerPoint presentation/s and other materials (handouts, etc.) presented
during the event.
• Event executed.
• A pre-event press release to announce the webinars and its expected outcomes
on COMESA NIPAs in collaboration with COMESA RIA.
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 • A post-event press release on the event proceedings, outcomes, participation
and recommendations in collaboration with COMESA RIA.
• Report including proceedings of the webinars, key outcomes, evaluation of
participants on the webinar content and delivery, analysis of the needs
assessment surveys and identification of future capacity building needs.
• Certificate of participation of all webinar series participants.

5. WORK PLAN, SCHEDULE AND REPORTING

The consultancy is expected to be undertaken during the period of 1st of May 2021 to
1st of October 2021. The reporting structure will be:
• Submission of an inception report two days after signing the contract
• Submission of a report two week following the delivery of the webinar for each
group.
• Submission of a final report two weeks following the finalization of the full
program.

6. REQUIREMENTS

The assignment will require a consultancy firm with the following qualifications:
• Demonstrated experience in Foreign Direct Investment field in Africa through
the execution of consultancy project with African IPAs, preferably COMESA
IPAs.
• Demonstrated experience in the preparation, organization and execution of
capacity building webinars.
• Demonstrates strong internal capacity and resources to undertake the
assignment.
• Strategic relationships with regional and international organizations related to
Foreign Direct Investment promotion, attraction and policies.
• Demonstrated knowledge on the impact of COVID-19 on IPAs operations and
FDI promotion, facilitation and general policies.

7. ELIGIBILITY OF CONSULTANTS

This consultancy is open only to firms/companies which are effectively established

in the COMESA Region, ACP and EU member countries with sufficient experience in
undertaking tasks and possessing the qualifications stated above in Clause 6 above.

8. COMMENCEMENT AND COMPLETION OF WORK

The assessment is expected to be implemented during the period 1st of May 2021 to
1st of October 2021.

9. CRITERIA FOR EVALUATION OF APPLICATIONS

The technical proposal will be evaluated according to the following criteria:

No. Criteria Score

1. Adherence to the TOR 20
2. Approach and methodology 30
3. Relevant Experience in organizing FDI capacity building 30
webinars
4. Relevant experience in working with COMESA /African IPAs 20

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The technical proposal will be assigned a weight of 80% and the financial proposal
will be assigned a weighted score of 20%.

10. SUBMISSION OF APPLICATIONS

Applications can be submitted through email or courier services and should be

addressed to:

COMESA Regional Investment Agency

3 A, Salah Salem Road,
Nasr City
Cairo, Egypt 11562

Attention: Mr. Mahmoud Mahgoub

Tel: +202 240 55 421
Fax: +202 240 55 428
Email: [email protected]

Please note all tenders must have the tender reference number clearly labelled.

“REQUEST FOR CONSULTANCY SERVICE TO ORGANIZE COMESA IPAs’

INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY IDENTIFICATION WEBINAR SERIES”

11. CLOSING DATE OF TENDER

Tenders must be submitted to the COMESA Regional Investment Agency (RIA) by 10th
of March 2021.

12. AWARD OF CONTRACTS

COMESA RIA reserves the right to wholly or partially reject or award these contracts
to any bidder and has no obligation to award this tender to the lowest bidder.

13. PRICING

All prices MUST be indicated in United States Dollars.

There will be no price variation contract after signing of contract except upon a mutual
written agreement between the two prices.

The price quoted shall be covering all the services required by COMESA RIA as
contained in this Request for Proposal. Prices must be inclusive of all taxes and
charges.

Prices must be valid for 30 days from the date of close of tender.

14. PAYMENT:

Bidders are required to indicate their professional fees in their offers and their payment
terms and conditions.

15. TECHNICAL QUERIES

For any technical queries related to specifications of work or TORs, kindly contact
[email protected]

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16. LANGUAGE OF TENDER:

Proficiency in English is mandatory since the language of this tender is English.

Knowledge of one among the other COMESA languages (French) would be preferred.