📋 Tender Overview
Project ID: P174814
Region: Africa east
Commitment Amount: Us$ 150.00 million
Total Project Cost: Us$ 150.00 million
The proposed project will be financed by Investment Project Financing (IPF) credits to the Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi and a grant to COMESA,totaling $150million.The IPF is proposed as the most appropriate and realistic instrument, bothcountries need significant investment into physical infrastructure and Technical Assistance (TA) to improve border infrastructure and to strengthen border management and capacities for coordination in border administration. A Project Preparatory Advance (PPAs)has been used in Burundi to finance necessary designs and safeguards assessments in advance of planned infrastructure interventions. In the DRC, provisionsand resources are included inthe GLTFPfor the preparation of such assessments.23.The proposed project would leverage regional IDA and meets the eligibility criteria under IDA19. Specifically, the proposedproject,(i)Has two participating countries, both of which are FCV;(ii)There is clear evidence of country ownership of the project reflected in a desire to implement trade measures under regional communities such as COMESA as well as the DRC’s recent application to join the East African Community of which Burundi is a member;(iii)The proposed project would have cross-boundary spill-over effects, targeting and supporting livelihoods among some of the most vulnerable communities in both countries;(iv)Based on experience with the GLTFP (P151083) the proposed project isexpected to provide a solid platform for high level efforts to harmonise and implement agreed trade policy measures, much as the other project has done between DRC and Rwanda and Uganda, respectively; and(v)The proposed grant to COMESA also meets all the relevant IDA 19 criteria for grants to regional organizations.COMESA will contribute to achieving high-level policy harmonization with regard the treatment of small-scale traders.Criteria for Determining Project Intervention Sites24.Objective criteriawill be appliedto determine specific sites for possible project interventions.Basedon assessments and preliminarydiscussions with client governments,a few principles have been definedforthe selection of project sites,consistent with theproposedPDO:(i)Volume of trade, especiallysmall-scaletrade:Ports and border posts with a high volume ofsmall-scaletrade and large number ofsmall-scaletraders are the priority. The analysis also seeks to assess the potential for future tradegrowth. (ii)Complementary investments in connecting infrastructure:Such investments can be through other World Bank financed projects or by other development agencies; attention to the potential risk of overlap or crowding out from other Bank or development agency projects is al
