C&M is pleased to report that TIEG won a new contract and will be undertaking the mid-term evaluation of the current 11th EDF funded CARIFORUM-EU Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) support programme. The programme is divided into six components: Innovation and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR); Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT); Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) measures; Capacity building in the areas of Competition, Procurement, Trade Facilitation and customs and legal drafting; and support for implementation of EPA and Caribbean Single Market and Economy (CSME) at the national level.

The overall objective of the EPA support programme is to contribute to the integration of the CARIFORUM into the world economy and its specific objective is the effective operation of the EPA.

Expected results of the EPA support programme are as follows:

  1. Innovation and IPR: Strengthened enabling framework that stimulates innovation and competitiveness of the private sector;
  2. SPS: Increased compliance with International Technical Regulations, Standards and Procedures and Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures in CARIFORUM States;
  3. TBT: Stakeholders in key economic sectors have been supported to solve their quality related challenges through the access to improved Quality Infrastructure services;
  4. Capacity Building in the area of competition, public procurement, trade facilitation and customs: Strengthened national and regional institutional capacities in these areas;

The mid-term evaluation will be carried out by two key experts consisting of the Team leader specialized in international trade policy and by highly-experienced Evaluator specialized in development economy.

Our team of experts start the activities in September 2022 and the period of execution of the contract is one year.