The Daily Observer (Banjul)
Sheriff Janko
3 November 2009
The government of The Gambia, represented by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs in collaboration with the European Commission (EC) Banjul office, yesterday held a day's mid-term review of the 10th European Development Fund at the Corinthia Atlantic Hotel in Banjul.
The 10th EDF and National Indicative Programme (NIP) represent the current cooperation framework within which the EC contributes to The Gambia's socio-economic development over the five-year period (2008-2013). The main trusts of this EDF intervention were in road infrastructure, good governance, general budget support and capacity building.
It aims among other things to verify whether the country strategy is still relevant and to assess the performance of the programme implementing the strategy. Yesterday's session also enabled the NAO and the EC delegation to share the wider stakeholders and the information generated so far in the process of the Mid-Term Review of The Gambia's 10th EDF Strategy which started in September 2009.
Speaking at the opening ceremony, Madam Helene Cave, the European Commission charge d' affaires in The Gambia, said that the Cotonou Agreement, signed in June 2000, and revised in June 2005, is the framework document that guides the cooperation between the 27 EU member states and the 79 African-Caribbean and Pacific c states.
She said the European Commission implements this cooperation and that the agreement is built on the experience of the 30 years of the ACP-EC partnership of the previous Lome Convention. "However, with major changes to improve our partnership and accelerate the pace of the cooperation, it has political, trade and of course cooperation dimension. It is also worth noting that the importance of the civil society and the participatory approach has been reinforced in the Contiou Agreement and this is a very positive trend," she said.
The EC charge d' affaires further outlined that in December 2007, the 10th European Development Fund Country Strategy Paper and National Indicative Programme, was signed for the period 2008-2013. The Mid-Term Review according to EC Charge D' Affairs Cave is also conducted in all ACO countries at the same time, and of course, the rules of the game are known in advance.
Abdou Kolley, the minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, recalled that in 2007 at a summit held in Lisbon-Portugal, The Gambia and the EC signed the five-year development assistance framework called the 10th EDF Country Strategy and National Indicative Programme. This strategy and Indicative Programme according to him, was allocated a sum of 72 Million Euro, as part of EC's contribution to The Gambia's development efforts in areas such as road infrastructure, good governance budget support and institutional capacity building. "Having gone almost half way into the programme cycle and taking into consideration recent global phenomena (such as the food, economic and financial crises) that have impacted on every country including The Gambia, it has been agreed that the parties to the ACP-EU partnership to bring forward the Mid-Term Review of the current cooperation, hence the Mid-Term Review of the 10th EDF in 2009," he said.
The Finance and Economic Affairs minister also alluded to the fact that the governance commitment undertaken at the time of adopting the 10th EDF strategy resulted to the increase of the country's initial allocation from 63.2 million Euro to 76 million Euro. This mid-term review he added will look into the progress towards the achievement of those governance commitment made.
He then observed that the 10th EDF has brought with it significant increase in their resource allocation, compared to previous EDFS noting that it also introduced them to a new form of aid delivery mechanism -general budget support. While applauding the efforts of all stakeholders of The Gambia- EC Cooperation, Minster Kolley also expressed his ministry's cordial partnership with the European Commission.
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