I. Background Information on the Technical Assistance Facility (TAF)

  The TAF is a Team Europe €24.5M fund to support the AfCFTA implementation. This program covers the period of 2022 to 2024 and is funded by the EU, Germany, France, Sweden and implemented by GIZ, Expertise France and FIIAPP.

   The TAF is set up as a Team Europe Initiative tool to deliver, in a reactive, flexible and on demand basis, the adequate technical assistance to meet the needs of the AfCFTA Secretariat, African Union Commission and AU specialized agencies, Regional Economic Communities (RECs), AU Member states, continental and regional private sector organizations, and other potential partners working on implementing the AfCFTA and African economic integration.

- Objectives and outputs of the EU-TAF  

  The EU-TAF seeks to contribute to African economic integration through the realisation of the AfCFTA (overall objective). It has two specific objectives:

            i.   enhance the capacity for preparing and conducting the remaining negotiations, and

       ii. strengthen the institutional capacity of targeted African institutions and countries to successfully implement the AfCFTA.

   II.         Context of the assignment

 The ECOWAS Regional Strategy for the implementation of the AfCFTA was adopted in July 2023 by the 90^th Ordinary Session of the ECOWAS Council of Ministers. Under the supervision of the Commissioner for Economic Affairs and Agriculture and the coordination of the Directorate of Trade, all technical Directorates of the Department, including Directorate of Private Sector, have a role to play in the operationalization of the Regional Strategy. 

   Moreover, in furtherance to the Agreement of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), the ECOWAS Directorate of Private Sector will monitor the AfCFTA Protocol on Investment.

 Under the current staffing situation at the ECOWAS Commission and its Agencies, which is characterized by insufficient human resources, additional responsibilities arising out of the need for the implementation of AfCFTA obligations will need fully dedicated technical personnel working within the aforementioned Directorate of Private Sector to support effective monitoring and implementation of the AfCFTA Protocol on Investment.

The requested support will facilitate the attainment of the continental as well as regional objectives of the socio-economic integration of Countries in the African Region. Specifically, the missions of the ECOWAS Directorate of Private Sector which are backed by the Revised ECOWAS Treaty, subject specific Legal Texts, Community Policies and the ECOWAS Vision 2050 are all targeted at achieving a Customs Union and a Common Market. Additionally, the requested support will strengthen the ECOWAS Community Acts related to Investment.

 The centrality and the importance of the ECOWAS Commission's Directorate of Trade in the context of regional implementation of the AfCFTA cannot be overstated because of the coordinating responsibility bequeathed to it within the ECOWAS organization, to drive and monitor AfCFTA implementation in the ECOWAS Region.

The idea of African Common Investment Market (ACIM), emerged from the need to achieve the objectives of African Economic Community (AEC), Abuja Treaty. The ACIM is expected to: (i) promote, facilitate and protect investments that would foster the sustainable development of African Union (AU) Member States; (ii) attract greater levels of investment into the continent through creating an international competitive investment area, which allows for free movement of capital, labour, goods and services across borders of Member States;(iii)  expand economic space for various continental actors for investments since national markets of most countries are too small to attract sizeable investment on their own; (iv) satisfy the desires of multinationals, fund managers and other investors from all over the world, who now give preference to continental investment area, rather than make African continent one of the major destinations for international investors while simultaneously enhancing national investment climate of Member States; (v) foster coherence and consistency with respect to the rules and principles that will govern investment protection, promotion and facilitation on the African continent; (vi) correct for distortions in competition for investment  among AU Member States with respect to: the free movement of people and  capital, and access to commercial credit, purchasing of bonds and securities on the stock markets of Member countries, opening of accounts in Member countries, and engaging in  trade in services, among others.

        Across the eight (8) Regional Economic Communities (RECs), there are significant efforts towards achieving economic integration agenda, and investment has been considered by most of them as an important dimension for such integration. Accordingly, most of the RECs are at various stages of adopting regional investment agreements, protocols, regulations, codes or related policies aimed at consolidating their regions as investment areas. Investment Protocol in the Phase II of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) negotiation together with the Protocols on Intellectual Property and Competition issues were adopted by Heads of State and Government of African Union (AU) in February 2023. The AfCFTA Investment Protocol is expected to build on the following achievements attained by the 8 RECs on investment levels.

        Among the ambitions of the ECOWS Revised Treaty in 1993 was to install measures that will reduce excessive competition for investments among the Member States. The Revised Treaty reiterated the Community’s goal to achieve an economic union by ensuring “the removal, between the Member States, of obstacles to the free movement of persons, goods, service, and capital”; i.e moving the region towards a Common Market and then to Monetary Union.  A key prerequisite for this to be achieved is the successful implementation of an ECOWAS Common Investment Market (ECIM); where the capital, persons, services, and goods will easily flow. Though the Revised ECOWAS Treaty recognized the importance of the common market, little attempt was made until when the Secretariat was transformed to become a Commission in 2007.

         With the transformation, the process towards the adoption of common policies on investment started by harmonizing and simplifying Member States’ legal, regulatory and institutional frameworks toward a Common Investment Code and ECOWAS Investment Policy. The Commission based its action on two principal provisions relating to an investment in the ECOWAS Revised Treaty: (a) the promotion of joint ventures by private sectors enterprises and other economic operators, in particular through the adoption of a regional agreement on cross-border investments;(Article 3.2(f)); and (b) the harmonization of national investment codes leading to the adoption of a single Community investment code;(Article 3.2(i)).