BACKGROUND
The World Bank is providing funding support to the Government of Ghana (GOG) for the implementation of the Ghana Economic Transformation Project. The overall development objective of the Project is to promote private investments and firm growth in non-resource-based sectors. The guiding principle of the Project is to promote and strengthen a growth model that is conducive to economic transformation, to achieve higher rates of investment and productivity growth across the economy, especially in non-resource-based sectors. The Project has four components, as follows:
Enabling investments: This Component will focus on improving the enabling business environment, investment attraction capacity, and the quality infrastructure support system for companies that want to invest and grow their businesses in Ghana.
Crowding-in investments: Promoting spatial and industrial planning and development: This Component will focus on enhancing the Government’s programs in investment promotion and spatial development (including Special Economic Zones), thereby addressing the constraint to access quality industrial land in the country.
Accelerating Entrepreneurship and Micro Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) growth: This Component will support entrepreneurship and MSME growth in non-resource-based sectors, addressing specifically the limited development of the MSME and entrepreneurship support ecosystem, including early-stage financing.
Project Management and Evaluation: This Component will finance project management activities including fiduciary responsibilities, procurement, safeguards, communication and dissemination, as well as monitoring and evaluation of project implementation and its impact. This will include capacity building for the Project Coordinating Unit (PCU), the Economic Transformation Unit and the Resource Mobilization and Economic Relations Division (RMERD) within the Ministry of Finance (MOF).
The Ghana Economic Transformation Project (GETP) aims to support economic diversification by facilitating transition to a higher growth and more long -term economic structure with better resilience against volatility in commodities pricing. This includes supporting the government as it moves to create more and decent jobs for the youth and rapidly growing labour force. The project is anchored in the Ghana Beyond Aid Vision and recognizes the critical role of the private sector in achieving economic transformation through increasing entrepreneurship and investment in high potential sectors.
OBJECTIVE OF THE ASSIGNMENT
The objective of this assignment is to conduct a benchmarking and value proposition exercise to determine Ghana’s Special Economic Zone (SEZs) and Industrial Park’s (IPs) competitiveness against a number of its core competitors. Based on the outcome of the exercise, the consultants will:
- synthesize the data to determine Ghana’s SEZ/IPs strengths/weaknesses and identify the country’s comparative advantages, and
- draft a value proposition for the country, focusing on how to enhance and make IPs and SEZs more competitive in order to attract foreign and domestic investors to Ghana.
SCOPE OF WORK
The scope of work for the Consultant Firm will include but not be limited to:
Benchmarking Exercise
The consultants will be responsible for obtaining/evaluating macro/micro economic and business operational data on Ghana and several of its competitors. Activity 1 will be to analyze the gathered data in order to determine the strengths/weakness of Ghana’s IP/SEZ regimes and to identify areas to be improved so Ghana can be more competitive on an international and regional platform. In order to undertake this work, one or two SEZs/IPs Ain 6~8 competing countries will be benchmarked and compared to Ghana. The exercise will be used to inform the design of upcoming SEZ projects, determine which interventions are needed to enhance the competitiveness of the country, identify any “deal-breakers”, which may make IPs / SEZs uncompetitive vis-à-vis competitor countries, and determine what future IPs / SEZs may need to offer the investor in order to compete effectively. (This data will also be used to develop a value proposition and marketing materials for the country’s IPs / SEZs regime.)