EU Call for Proposals to Improve Competitiveness and the Export Capacity of SMEs in Selected Value Chains

Deadline: 10 July 2019

The European Union (EU) has announced a call for proposals to contribute to the improved competitiveness and export capacity of Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises (MSMEs) in selected value chains for sustainable growth and job creation.

Objectives

• Specific Objective 1: Support the Business Support Organisations (BSOs) to improve their service delivery to their members.
• Specific Objective 2: Support selected MSME value chains for improved production and export performance.

Priorities Area

The priority areas of this call for proposals are:

• Under specific objective 1 (BSO focus):
  • Development of institutional capacity of BSO to carry out their mandates of giving improved business development services to their membership and for enhanced public-private policy dialogue. The interventions must aim to capacitate the BSOs to be able to lobby and advocate for resolution of macro-level challenges and the reform of policy and regulations impeding the smooth operations of business.
  • Promotion of business linkages and market access, partnerships, backward and forward collaboration along the value chains including business incubation facilities, promoting collaboration of export institutions, trade promotion bodies, commodity associations and quality control and certification institutions including promoting business linkages between formal and informal businesses.
  • Providing training to members including on entrepreneurship and skills development.
• Under specific objective 2 (Value chain focus):
  • Improvement of productive capacity, quality, economic, social and environmental sustainability across the selected value chains to include appropriate production processes and technologies, quality assurance, compliance with both regional and international quality standards, regulations and certification requirements, environment protection/green economy, gender equity and good labor practices, This may include the promotion of new products with a particular focus on processed/refined products.
  • Address coordination constraints to facilitate linkages/cooperation among various actors and stages of the value chains (input supply, production, processing, marketing, distribution and selling to end users),
  • Facilitating and promoting market access at the national, regional and international level including to the European Union under the favourable terms of the IEPA.

The following considerations must be taken into account when designing proposals under this call:

• The proposal must address both specific objectives (BSOs and Value Chain). The priority areas outlined above are meant to provide further guidance for the drafting and possible content of the proposal. Tackling both specific objectives simultaneously is justified since MSMEs require support in doing business and to overcome constraints related to the relatively small sizes of their businesses compared to bigger and well established market players. MSMEs require also assistance in improving their value chains as well as having better access to input supply, processing/transformation and marketing, for which a better organisation and grouping of producers might be of strategic importance. Supporting MSMEs to collaborate with the private sector as well as public bodies providing services aiming to support the profitability, market access and to cope better with challenges described above might be of relevance for a viable support strategy.
• Preferably the proposal should address value chains chosen from the following; horticulture, floriculture, textiles and clothing agro-processing and leather processing .
• For the purpose of this call, a Value Chain (VC) will be understood as, a sequence of related business operations (functions) from the provision of specific inputs for a particular product to primary production, transformation, marketing, and up to the final sale of the particular product to consumers.

Size of Grants

Any grant requested under this call for proposals must fall between the following minimum and maximum amounts:

• Minimum amount: EUR 2,000,000
• Maximum amount: EUR 3,000,000

Eligibility Criteria

• Lead applicant
  • In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:
    • be a legal person and
    • be a specific type of organisation such as: Civil Society Organisations, private sector operators and their associations, public bodies and international (inter-governmental) organisation as defined by Article 43 of the Rules of application of the EU Financial Regulation  and
    • be established in Zimbabwe, or in countries eligible under the EDF.
  • For British applicants: Please be aware that eligibility criteria must be complied with for the entire duration of the grant. Unless sector-specific eligibility rules provide otherwise, if the United Kingdom withdraws from the EU during the grant period without concluding an agreement with the EU ensuring in particular that British applicants continue to be eligible, you will cease to receive EU funding (while continuing, where possible to participate) or will be required to leave the project on the basis of Article 12.2 (e) General Conditions of the grant agreement.
  • This obligation does not apply to international organisations and
    • be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the co-applicant(s) and affiliated entity(ies), not acting as an intermediary and
    • have demonstrated capacity and experience in the last three years of managing actions in the same sector and of a comparable scale to the one for which a grant is being requested.
  • Potential applicants may not participate in calls for proposals or be awarded grants if they are in any of the situations.
  • Co-applicant(s)
    • Co-applicants participate in designing and implementing the action, and the costs they incur are eligible in the same way as those incurred by the lead applicant.
    • Co-applicants must satisfy the eligibility criteria a, b, c & d as applicable to the lead applicant himself. Regarding criteria (e), Co-applicant must have a minimum of two years demonstrated technical and management experience related to the sector of the grant requested in the last 3 years from the deadline of submission of the concept note.
  • Affiliated entities
    • The lead applicant and its co-applicant(s) may act with affiliated entity(ies).
    • Only the following entities may be considered as affiliated entities to the lead applicant and/or to co¬applicants):
      • Only entities having a structural link with the applicants (i.e. the lead applicant or a co-applicant), in particular a legal or capital link.
      • This structural link encompasses mainly two notions:
        • Control, as defined in Directive 2013/34/EU on the annual financial statements, consolidated financial statements and related reports of certain types of undertakings:
          • Entities affiliated to an applicant may hence be:
            • Entities directly or indirectly controlled by the applicant (daughter companies or first-tier subsidiaries). They may also be entities controlled by an entity controlled by the applicant (granddaughter companies or second-tier subsidiaries) and the same applies to further tiers of control;
            • Entities directly or indirectly controlling the applicant (parent companies). Likewise, they may be entities controlling an entity controlling the applicant;
            • Entities under the same direct or indirect control as the applicant (sister companies).
          • Membership, i.e. the applicant is legally defined as a e.g. network, federation, association in which the proposed affiliated entities also participate or the applicant participates in the same entity (e.g. network, federation, association) as the proposed affiliated entities.

How to Apply

• The application procedure consists of two phases:
  • Concept notes
  • Full applications
• In the first instance, only concept notes must be submitted for evaluation. Thereafter, lead applicants who have been pre-selected will be invited to submit a full application.

For more information, please visit http://bit.ly/2WxwO8K and download the guidelines.