📋 Tender Overview
Project ID: P172425
Region: Africa
Commitment Amount: Us$ 150.00 million
Total Project Cost: Us$ 150.00 million
The Côte d’Ivoire (CIV) Jobs and Economic Transformation (JET) project falls under the World Bank Group’s JET agenda, one of the special themes of IDA19. The key elements of the JET agenda are more and better jobs; increasing productivity through diversification, international integration, upgrading, etc.; export-orientation; connecting to markets; and, building workers capabilities. JET sets forth an organizing principle for policies, principles and investments that the WBG already promotes or finances and brings them together in a framework for the specific country context of a client country. In particular, the policy mix tailored to the client country needs to take into account endowments, geography, institutions, stage of transition and gaps in the enabling environment. The development challenges that the Côte d’Ivoire JET project intends to address are the lack of competitiveness of firms and sectors;the heavy concentration in low-value commodity exports; a lack diversity in its export basket; low firm productivity; and, a lack of access to finance for MSMEs.Although the COVID19 pandemic may present risks of protectionism, disrupted value chains andlower demand for some goods and services, the risk for Cote d’Ivoire remains mitigated as the shocks are temporary and recovery is expected. As previously mentioned, while external current account deficit will rise in 2020, but is expected to recover in 2021, due to higher productivity in agriculture and manufacturing which should boost exports. This overall context presents a favorable environment for the Government of Cote d’Ivoire to continue its Vision 2030 strategic plan to prioritize creation of value added in its agricultural value chains as well as the development of new value chains to diversify higher value-added exportsThe JET Project builds on the recently completed Country Private Sector Diagnostic (CPSD) for Côte d’Ivoire.The main recommendations of the CPSD are to close gaps in five areas: business environment, finance, transport and logistics, digital connectivity and skills. The CPSD also identifies sectors for diversification and value addition with high potential for growth using five criteria: 1) revealed comparative advantage; 2) evolution of global demand; 3) employment elasticity of the sector; 4) prospects for greater domestic value-addition, such as through diversification into related manufacturing sectors and 5) private sector track-record and interest. Based on these criteria, agriculture, agro-processing and manufacturing were identified as sectors with high potential. More specifically, the priority sectors which could lead to diversification and greater domestic value addition were identified as: cashew, cotton, horticulture, rubber and palm oil.
