The European Business Council for Africa

18 June 2025

Brussels

The ICR Facility started in September 2019, as a multi-partner project to support the

improvement of policies that drive conducive business and investment climate in Africa,

Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries. After 5 years of successful implementation, the ICR

Facility in its current shape will conclude in August 2025, before a follow-up project covering

Global Gateway corridors and flagships kicks off by the end of 2025 for another 4 years.

Before ending this chapter, the ICR Facility team is inviting donors, partners and peers to join

their closing event. It will be the occasion to reflect on successes and share the lessons

learned from our one-team approach of co-implementation that has supported the

advancement of gender-sensitive business environment reforms across Africa, the Caribbean

and the Pacific.

How has the ICR Facility grown from a coordinated multi-partner project to a fully

integrated team based on inter-agency collaboration ? How does that translate into

day-to-day processes and activities ? And how can these good practices be replicated

in the upcoming ICR Global Gateway Facility and other Team Europe Initiatives ?

The event is aimed at sharing with donors, international cooperation agencies and

development practitioners, how the ICR Facility team and management unit adapted over the

course of 5 years, from COVID-19 in 2020 to becoming a gender-transformative project in

2022, to evolve from a coordination-based to a collaboration-based facility.

The event will include panel discussions, presentations and interactive sessions featuring the

ICR Facility’s donors, implementing agencies, team members, partners that benefitted from

technical assistance, as well as diplomatic representations that have been relays and support

of the ICR Facility’s interventions. The topics covered will span from translating a Multi-Partner

Contribution Agreement (MPCA) into a functioning facility structure, to materialising

collaboration in demand-based technical assistance in ACP countries piloted from Brussels.

The dynamic formats of the sessions will allow for exchanges between the speakers and the

audience. Times will also be reserved for informal exchanges and networking.