Title/Position: Online Marketplaces Consultant
Level of Effort: 16 days (remotely)
Period of Performance: January – March 2023
Place of Performance: Consultant’s location of residence
BACKGROUND
The goal of USAID’s Trade Central Asia (TCA) activity is to improve region-wide trade connectivity and harmonization to accelerate economic growth and increase economic opportunity in Central Asia through: harmonization of customs and border procedures; increasing public-private dialogue on cross-border trade and investment; and improving cross-border firm-to-firm connectivity; addressing gender-relevant trade issues. The Activity will be implemented in the five Central Asian countries, including in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
DAI has been awarded a contract by USAID to implement TCA. Under the Objective 3, DAI will strengthen the ecosystem of trade promotion service providers (TPSPs) to deliver certification, marketing, finance, transport/logistics and other services necessary for firms across Central Asia. TPSPs can be government or private sector entities as well as individual service providers. Thus, TCA is partnering with trade promotion organizations (TPO) such as export promotion agencies (EPA), chambers of commerce and industry (CCI) and business associations to jointly implement export support activities and strengthen TPOs competence necessary for serving to the private sector.
TPOs often raise the question of creating regional and/or national trade portals to provide information about export-import procedures for exporters as well as online marketplaces to promote Central Asian products. Several development projects are proving eCommerce related support to Central Asian firms, inter alia, registration of Central Asian firms in international online marketplaces, legal framework for online trade and customs procedures.
TCA considers online marketplaces from the TPO perspective as an emerging export promotion tool. Thus, TCA intends to review Central Asian marketplaces to see how their platforms can be utilized for virtual market linkages. However, local online marketplaces are at the stage of their development and their capacity varies from country to country being as an advertisement board or full-fledged portal with all services (functionality). The agenda of the TCA-led TPO Workshop to be held in March 2023 (TBD) will comprise the session on eCommerce to discuss the results of this assessment.
TCA is seeking a short-term online marketplaces consultant (hereafter referred to as the Consultant) who will be engaged in completing this assignment.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this consultancy is to review the capacity of Central Asian online marketplaces to provide TPOs with recommendations for their strategies on digitizing trade and developing export support ecosystem.
TASKS
The Consultant will implement the following tasks:
1.1. Review the website functionality (log in zone negotiations, payment, etc.) of local online marketplaces and categorize accordingly (B2B, B2C, advertisement board, trade portal for information dissemination, etc.).
1.2. Conduct online interviews with stakeholders – TPOs, producers, traders, business associations, development projects to collect the relevant information and experts’ recommendations.
1.3. Develop a review report using the collected information and global eCommerce best practices that can serve as a good benchmark and proving recommendations to TPOs.
DELIVERABLES
By the end of the assignment, the Consultants shall deliver:
1.4. Report on Central Asian Online Marketplaces Capacity with recommendations to TPOs
1.5. Presentation (PowerPoint, not less than 20 slides) of the review results online during the TPO Workshop to be organized by TCA in March 2023 (TBD).
QUALIFICATIONS
DAI works at the cutting edge of international development, combining technical excellence, professional project management, and exceptional customer service to solve our clients’ most complex problems. Since 1970, DAI has worked in 150 developing and transition countries, providing comprehensive development solutions in areas including crisis mitigation and stability operations, democratic governance and public sector management, agriculture and agribusiness, private sector development and financial services, economics and trade, HIV/AIDS, avian influenza control, water and natural resources management, and energy and climate change. Clients include international development agencies, international lending institutions, private corporations and philanthropies, and host-country governments.
