Year One Annual Work Plan for West Bank and Gaza Compete Project

The project is designed to build on the strengths of previous USAID enterprise development projects, providing a combination of market information, innovative solutions, technical assistance, and training to Palestinian enterprises and business associations. The project's primary objective is to address sectorial gaps that will enable Palestinian enterprises to identify and exploit significant economic opportunities, primarily in the international market. Compete will target Palestinian firms with good potential for growth that can expand the country's export revenues and increase employment. The project will work sector-wide to upgrade the individual and collective performance of enterprises in targeted sectors, maximizing local value addition and helping to calibrate needed changes throughout key value chains to accelerate growth. The Compete Project will systematically provide to its stakeholders the key tools for performance, including business linkages, networks, and information systems. The project will also coach sector participants on how to use these tools and ensure their broad-based, commercially sustainable availability. Additionally, Compete will strengthen vertical linkages and inter-firm cooperation by forging connections between microenterprises and SMEs and larger firms, which have direct and more efficient access to markets and a better understanding of market requirements. The project's organizational structure is divided into four sectors: Agriculture and Agribusiness, Tourism Development, Information Technology, and Stone and Marble. Each sector has a Component Leader, and the Chief of Party oversees all four sector teams, working directly with a Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist to implement the Performance Monitoring Plan. The Compete Project's work plan was developed based on a series of counterpart meetings and meetings with USAID. Stakeholder input is critical for the success of this project, and the Compete Project will continue close collaboration with key stakeholders during the implementation of work plan activities and in planning for future initiatives. The project will also conduct CIBER assessments to drive the development of activities for project years 2 and 3. The CIBER assessments will focus on the impacts of the legal, regulatory, administrative, and judicial framework on competitiveness across value chains. The project will use a value chain framework to trace elements of competitiveness for all institutions and actors involved in the production of a particular good or service, from raw materials to final consumption. This approach will enable the project to identify areas where the business environment can be improved to enhance competitiveness and facilitate growth. The Compete Project's results framework is presented in Annex A, providing a foundation for work planning and performance monitoring. The framework conveys the development hypothesis implicit in project goals and objectives, as well as the cause-effect relationships between key result areas, project intermediate results, and project objectives. The Compete Results Framework was developed through a critical review by Compete technical staff, considering technical issues, potential activities and solutions, and key results.