Provision of Consultancy Services for Cameroon E-Commerce Market Access Support

The Commonwealth Secretariat has supported the Government of Cameron to facilitate the development of an e-commerce strategy. A key deliverable of this project was to conduct capacity-building programs for enhancing women and SME cross-border e-commerce knowledge. 

This is more so as findings during the course of the development of the project under our gender mainstreaming activities revealed that women entrepreneurs were found to be at a disadvantage in terms of access to digital infrastructure and participation in e-commerce platforms.

The goal of the program is mainly to build capacity of women-owned MSMEs in the areas of digital trade and E-commerce/online sales and facilitate their entry into regional and international digital marketplace. This consultancy will be required to deliver the second phase of the digital boot camp support to selected MSMEs who have completed the first phase of the training by providing additional support to design and deploy website or digital marketing initiatives to access major B2C online retail market portals.

Specific objectives include:

1. Identify possible interventions for addressing their trade capacity challenges, infrastructural deficiencies and development needs.
2. Develop and implement business-specific support activities for the phase 2 entrepreneurs, including market access support on 3 key online platforms.

Tasks to be undertaken

The Consultant will carry out the following specific activities:

1. Select the most digital-ready companies from the bootcamp trained firms that are able to benefit from the market access support.
2. Develop a proposal and deploy key strategies that may include digital marketing, website enhancement, or any other actions that will help the MSMEs to access major B2C / B2B online retail market portals and provide one on one support to selected firms.

1. Selection of the most digital-ready companies

The consultant, in partnership with ITFC, Comsec and the Cameroonian authorities will set up an assessment system which will allow for the selection of the most digital-ready companies. The use of this assessment system will allow for fairness and objectivity in the choice of beneficiaries as it standardizes the process by which companies are chosen.

2. Proposal, development, and execution of key digital strategies

Market access support will focus on identifying, developing, and implementing key strategies that will allow digital-ready SMEs to increase their businesses through digital tools. These strategies can include:

• extensive application of successfully proven digital marketing strategies in the Cameroonian context,
• use of websites or social medial platforms to increase revenues or expand customer base or interest in one’s products, both locally and internationally
• use of digital platforms to access foreign markets

The provisional timeline may be amended by agreement between the consultant and the TONR.

Education and experience

• Academic Qualifications and certifications in Computer Science and or IT Specialization International Trade, Economics, MBA,
• At least 8 years’ international experience in training and development for private sector organisations
• Proven experience in digital market access for MSMEs in Africa
• Substantive knowledge and working experience on E-commerce initiatives and ongoing multilateral and regional deliberations on digital trade.
• A working knowledge of English and French is required.
• Ability to work with a broad range of stakeholders.

Evaluation criteria

The Technical Questionnaire Quotes will be assessed based on the evaluation criteria set forth in this document (see skills and experience required and the weightings apportioned to quality/price above in this Terms of reference/RFQ).

Please apply for this contract by submitting a Proposal to [email protected] by 27 July 2023. 

Commonwealth and International Islamic Trade Finance Cooperation (ITFC) countries are invited to submit bids.