Context and justification of the need

Expertise France is the France’s public agency and interministerial actor in charge of international technical cooperation, the second-largest in Europe. As a subsidiary of Agence Française de Développement Group (AFD Group), it designs and implements projects that sustainably strengthen public policies in developing and emerging countries. Expertise France works in key areas of development: governance, security, climate change, health, education, and more. Alongside its partners, it contributes to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Implementation of the Circular Economy Roadmap of Mauritius: The Republic of Mauritius considers the adoption of a Circular Economy (CE) model as a priority to effectively address the challenges of environmental degradation, climate change, biodiversity loss, women's empowerment, and inequality. This is reflected in the Vision 2050 outlined in the Mauritian CE Roadmap, which envisions a circular economy deeply embedded in the culture—generating sustainable production and consumption, driving the regeneration of nature, positively impacting people’s lives and the environment, and fostering the creation of green jobs and sustainable business opportunities.

The proposed action, financed by the European Union, contributes to the specific objective of "Supporting the government in achieving its own goals in renewable energy production, waste management, and environmental protection, as set out in the National Environmental Strategy 2020–2030."

The building and construction sector: This sector is a major contributor to the economy and employs directly and indirectly some 120,000 workers in Mauritius representing around 22% of the total workforce. In 2019, the sector contributed to some 9.7% to the GDP. Over the past decades, the industry has progressed through many phases, evolving from the construction of small housing units to major projects like smart cities, port and airports, flyovers, motorway and more recently the light rail system. =

Private sector support: Within Expertise France activities, a component of the project aims is implementing to strengthen circular economy (CE) initiatives across the built environment value chain, with a focus on women entrepreneurship, in close collaboration with Business Mauritius. This objective is specifically dedicated to supporting the private sector in the construction and demolition (C&D) sector, helping businesses, SMEs, and women entrepreneurs adopt circular practices and overcome key barriers such as high costs of recycled materials, limited data availability, weak value chain coordination, and insufficient access to finance. Stakeholder consultations revealed that targeted regulatory, financial, and technical support is needed to accelerate the transition, and these findings inform the three core activities developed under this objective.

To achieve its objectives, the project will implement activities across three interconnected areas:

•          Capacity reinforcement: Focuses on establishing a facility as a central support platform for the C&D private sector, delivering training, technical assistance, and peer-to-peer exchanges to strengthen circular economy uptake across the value chain.
•         Access to finance: improve access to finance for CE initiatives, mapping funding opportunities, engaging financial institutions, and supporting public sector actors and incubators to better integrate CE criteria into their mechanisms — with particular attention to SMEs and women-led enterprises. Finally,
•          Demonstrator projects: provides direct support to innovative private sector initiatives through two targeted pilots: one focused on secondary construction materials, and one fostering public-private alliances to reduce the environmental impact of C&D waste.

II.      Objectives and desired results

1)      General objective

 The project aims to strengthen the effectiveness and uptake of circular economy practices within the built environment value chain, with a particular focus on SMEs and women entrepreneurs.

It focuses on supporting the development and implementation of concrete circular initiatives, by enhancing technical capacities, facilitating public–private collaboration, and providing tailored support through tools such as the Circular Economy (CE) Hub, training programmes, incubation, and access to finance.

 The project also seeks to address key barriers—including limited technical knowledge, weak business models, and restricted access to markets and finance—in order to enable the emergence of viable, scalable, and impactful circular solutions.

 As part of the project supporting the implementation of the Circular Economy Roadmap in Mauritius, Output 2.2 aims to improve financing mechanisms for circular economy (CE) initiatives led by SMEs and NGOs. Initial analyses highlight several key challenges, including the limited structuring of CE financing tools and the difficulties faced by stakeholders in accessing suitable funding. More fundamentally, they point to the need to strengthen the economic viability of projects by better linking them to market opportunities and sustainable business models. In this context, the project intends to mobilize dedicated expertise to define an integrated approach combining financing mechanisms, business model structuring, and improved access to markets.

 Across all three activities under Output 2.2  will include a focuses on mapping financing opportunities for circular economy (CE) initiatives, covering both banking and non-banking mechanisms, and public sector actors. It will also aim to develop guidelines and methodological tools for funding mechanisms and provide targeted support to financial institutions through training and workshops, promote the integration of CE criteria into banking procedures, and help define evaluation standards for construction and demolition waste investments

 To support this task, and tailored the support dedicated to SMEs the expertise will carry out a comprehensive diagnostic of SMEs operating in the construction sector in Mauritius in order to design a strategy that facilitates their access to financing and strengthens their technical capacities to develop circular economy (CE) projects. Special attention will be given to women-led enterprises, to understand their specific financing needs.

2)      Specific objectives

 The following tasks aim to provide a structured analysis of SMEs operating across the construction value chain, in order to better understand their capacities, needs, and constraints in adopting circular economy practices. This analysis will inform the development of targeted and operational recommendations to support their effective engagement in circular economy initiatives. In this context, the assignment will pursue the following specific objectives:

•           To develop a comprehensive understanding of SMEs operating across the construction value chain, including their typologies and roles
•           To assess the financial and technical needs of SMEs for the development and implementation of circular economy (CE) projects
•           To design a targeted and operational support strategy aimed at enhancing SMEs’ capacity to develop viable CE initiatives
• -         To identify and address cross-cutting challenges, particularly those related to gender equality and the integration of the informal sector