Cap Compétences

Cap Compétences is an expertise facility financed by Agence Française de Développement (AFD) which aims to improve the quality of the appraisal, preparation and support for vocational training and higher education projects by capitalising on the expertise and experience of Expertise France in implementing and deploying expertise. At AFD’s request, Expertise France mobilises and supervises experts to carry out identification, opportunity and feasibility studies on projects and support the start-up phase of activities.

Since 2020, Cap Compétences has delivered 31 services in 18 locations: South Africa, Bangladesh, Benin, Comoros, Ivory Coast, Costa Rica, Djibouti, Egypt, Guinea, Madagascar, Morocco, Nigeria, Indian Ocean, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, and Tunisia.

The services provided through Cap Compétences are deployed prior to the projects. They comprise various expert missions to conduct studies in a local-international synergy to support AFD Group’s projects.

Broadly speaking, Cap Compétences includes the following activities:

• Policy/strategy analyses and action plans: these services support governments in sectoral diagnosis and public policy in vocational training or higher education. They may lead to AFD financing, particularly in the form of budgetary financing for public policies.
• Exploratory study (overview) to define/propose the most appropriate scope of intervention.
• Opportunity study: this builds on the exploratory study and outlines one or more intervention scenarios.
• Feasibility study: project engineering operationalizes the selected scenario.
• Study to determine the size of training centers.
• Budgetary financing of public policies: under this modality, AFD provides financing linked to results, indicators, and targets decided upon with the project owner. 
• Setting up/consolidating mechanisms/funds for financing vocational training, higher education, and/or research.
• Start-up support/transitional project management assistance (prior to project launch): this involves stabilizing the project ecosystem to accelerate its effective launch.
 

Gender, sustainable development, environmental and climate transition, and consideration for vulnerable populations are cross-cutting themes in all of the AFD Group's activities and project development.