Moldova is the poorest country in Europe, with a GDP per capita of 2,311 USD. This is roughly half of the average income per capita in the post-Soviet region. The country faces several structural economic problems, few of which are short-term in duration. It imports over 90% of its energy and it has an aging and decreasing population that is ethnically and linguistically diverse, as well as mostly rural. Furthermore, Moldova has an extremely open economy, and its properly documented citizens are granted free access to both the EU and post-Soviet visas. It also has a "frozen conflict" with its break-away region of Transnistria.

To overcome these challenges, Moldova signed an Association Agreement (AA) with the European Union which fully entered into force in July 2016. The AA includes a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Area (DCFTA) with the EU, aiming to diversify exports and improving the legal framework for a market economy. Along with the AA, Moldova receives a significant amount of external assistance budget support from the EU. In order to improve the efficiency of the national coordination structure, the Government of Moldova decided in 2017 to reallocate general aid coordination. Nevertheless, there are capacity constraints across the public administration, such as the merging of central ministries and a substantial (around 45%) cut of personnel, both initiated in 2017. Hence, Moldova needs additional support to coordinate the assistance that it receives.

The approach will aim to strengthen project preparation competencies of national authorities, ensuring complementarity between the implementation of the AA and external assistance. DT Global will support the Contracting Authority to achieve the overall objective through the following activities:

• To strengthen aid coordination mechanisms towards fulfilling the policy gaps related to the implementation of the AA through institution-building activities.
• To prepare project pipeline facility (PPF) linked to the implementation of the AA.
• To improve internal communication systems for cost effective data management throughout institution-building activities.

DT Global is committed to achieving the following key results:

• Strengthening the national external assistance coordination system.
• Strengthening the capacity of the national authority for external assistance.
• Enhancing the capacities of the ministries, state authorities, and other potential stakeholders on identification, formulation, costing, budgeting, management and implementation, monitoring and reporting, and evaluation of projects financed from external sources.
• Enabling the preparation of a pipeline of high quality and financially viable projects.