EPAS Regional Meeting to take place in Mombasa
By Andrew Allimadi, Communication Officer, ECA
19 September 2005

The Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) is organizing an Africa-wide meeting of trade experts from 22 – 24 September 2005 in Mombasa, Kenya to discuss the on-going Economic Partnership Agreement (EPAs) negotiations taking place with the European Union (EU). The meeting will be opened by Hon. Mukhisa Kituyi, Kenya’s Minister of Trade and Industry.

The Ministry of Trade and Industry of the Republic of Kenya, the African Union, African Development Bank and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are partners in organizing this meeting. Participants include experts from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), Southern African Trade Research Network (SATRN), Third World Network (TWN) and Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Initiative (SEATINI). Senior government officials and African trade negotiators will also attend.

Experts will discuss conclusions from several EPAs impact analysis studies conducted in Africa quantifying the implications at the country level, the regional level and for each of the groupings currently undertaking negotiations with the EU. These are are Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA), Southern African Development Community (SADC), Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Participants will identify key areas where African countries can negotiate collectively to maximize the positive effects of EPAs and achieve the desired objectives. They will also assess priorities to be followed by substantive negotiations in order to provide a clear road map for negotiators and encourage the four regional groupings to share experiences.

This regional meeting is particularly important because the EPAs talks are running concurrently with the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Round negotiations. These two negotiations are intertwined and it is important to ensure that one does not undermine the other.

The regional meeting is a culmination of a series of sub-regional meetings also organized by ECA and its partners to discuss EPAs. These meetings took place in Pointe-Noire from 2 to 3 December 2004 for Central African countries; Ouagadougou for ECOWAS from March 3 to 8; Kigali for the Eastern African region from March 14 to 19; and Maputo for SADC member-states from April 4 to 5.