Addis Ababa — The African Trade Policy Centre (ATPC) hosted in collaboration with the Walvis Bay Group, the second African Corridor Management Alliance (ACMA) board meeting on the 11th of April in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Johny Smith, the out-going interim Chair of ACMA expressed his appreciation to the ECA for the unwavering support offered to the ACMA interim Secretariat and ACMA's role in fostering collaboration among Corridor Management Institutions (CMIs). He noted that this was accomplished by sharing best practices on corridor development from various sub regions on the continent and combining resources "in order to find a common purpose on how to collectively grow our economies."
He stated that transport corridors are vehicles for economic transformation and the CMIs enhance trade facilitation and infrastructure development through various platforms, debates, discussions and meetings to fast track corridor linkages, value chains, poverty reduction and development of regional economies. "They therefore play a crucial role in stimulating the economic growth on the African continent," he said, adding that with ACMA's support, the CMIs must be formalized to allow a structured progression of development on the corridors.
For his part, David Luke, Coordinator of ATPC, said: "the meeting came at an opportune time when the African Union member states endorsed and signed the African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA). As a continental body, it is important for ACMA to ensure representation from all regions on the continent and look at long-term initiatives to build capacity and traction in linking African sub-regions through corridors".
Stressing the need to address one of ACMA's challenge of ensuring long-term sustainability, he said, "Developing strategic partnerships is fundamental to driving our agenda of converting transport corridors into economic corridors, thereby enhancing value chains to boost intra-African trade".
The need to build stronger strategic partnerships with Regional Economic Communities (RECs), regional and continental agencies and private sector players was noted as a priority for ACMA to focus on. The need to improve efficiency, performance monitoring along corridors and collective fine tuning of various performance indicators was discussed. Harmonizing current efforts for data collection was agreed as a measuring tool for all CMIs. In this respect, the meeting also highlighted the need to support CMIs that were weakly developed, and agreed to explore a CMI link to the Sahel countries with Northern Africa. The meeting also adopted the ACMA website and logo design, and stressed the need to undertake resource mobilization with the African Union (AU), New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), AUC- African Business Council, and the African Development Bank (AfDB) among others who have expressed interest in supporting the work of ACMA.
The Walvis Bay Corridor Group will continue the role of Interim Secretariat for ACMA with Mr. Clive Smith, Acting Chief Executive Officer of the WBCG, taking over the role of Interim Chair of the ACMA Board.
The meeting was attended by the ACMA Secretariat, Walvis Bay Corridor Group, ECA staff, Arab Maghreb Union and prominent CMIs; Maputo Corridor Logistics Initiative, Dar Es Salaam Corridor, Abidjan-Lagos Corridor and the Northern Corridor.
