Background Information

USAID Competitiveness, Trade, and Jobs Activity in Central Asia (hereafter abbreviated CTJ) is a five-year (2016-2021) project focused on increasing the competitiveness of Central Asian economies and creating jobs. CTJ focuses on three primary sectors:

1. Horticultural;
2. Transportation & Logistics
3. Tourism

and works with governments and private sector firms to facilitate the removal of barriers that impede trade and timely delivery of quality goods and services.

The CTJ project is implemented in Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan and maintains an office in each country.

What is the Innovation Facility?

The Innovation Facility is a fund established to incentivize partners to undertake innovative initiatives in the horticulture, transportation & logistics, and tourism sectors in order to increase their export potential, grow their business and create jobs. The innovation facility fund is meant to help buy-down and mitigate some of the risk inherent in adapting to new processes or adopting disruptive technologies. CTJ’s Innovation Facility requires a minimum of a 1:1 monetary contribution. This means that if a partner proposes a $30,000 innovation, then the partner must pay at least 50% or $15,000. Please take into consideration that operational expenses and other current expenditures of the applicant (e.g. rent, salary, accounting and office expenses, etc.) cannot be considered as part of contribution. The 50% co-investment should be the applicant’s own funds or bank loan (to demonstrate that the partner is also willing to take on some risk).

CTJ anticipates its contribution to the majority of selected projects will range between $50,000 to $100,000 per project. However, smaller requests will be considered and for exceptional proposals, CTJ will consider requests that are more than $100,000.

Monthly Review of Concept Notes

All concept notes will be reviewed at the end of each month on an ongoing basis. Concept notes received by the 25th of each month will be reviewed within the first two weeks of the next month. At the discretion of CTJ, concept notes received but not selected during an earlier period may be re-considered on a rolling basis during subsequent monthly evaluations.

Source of information and details at http://catradeforum.org/ru/innovation/