Arusha — The Fifth Steering Committee Meeting (SCM) of the African Trade Policy Centre (ATPC) was hosted by the East African Community (EAC) Secretariat in Arusha, Tanzania from 19 to 20 February 2020. The meeting was attended by ECA Sub Regional Offices, Regional Economic Communities (RECs), collaborating institutions, development partners, private sector, civil society and academia.
The SCM was chaired by Mr. Hussein Hassan, Ag. Director of Trade and Industry at the African Union Commission, representing the AU Trade and Industry Commissioner. He thanked the ATPC for its work in moving Africa's trade agenda forward through supporting Member States and RECs to advance on the African Union's twin flagship initiatives, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) and the Boosting Intra-African Trade (BIAT) Action Plan.
The Vice-Chair of the meeting, Ms. Khadija Jarik of Global Affairs Canada (GAC), commended the Centre for its achievements in delivering on the recommendations of the Fourth ATPC SCM. She highlighted that ATPC's progressive approach to integrating cross-cutting issues such as gender and human rights, is closely aligned to Canada's feminist development assistance and inclusive trade agenda, and signalled GAC's commitment towards supporting a fourth cycle of ATPC for the period 2021-2025.
The core of the meeting focused on presenting ATPC's program results and financial statements for 2019 and work programme and budget for 2020. Partners and experts in attendance praised the Centre for the high quality and breadth of it's previous, ongoing and planned research and capacity building activities. Stephen Karingi, ECA's Director of Regional Integration and Trade, expressed his gratitude for the success of ATPC in making it possible for every part of ECA to contribute to the AfCFTA and regional integration in Africa.
A key highlight of the two days was a presentation on the evaluation of Phase I of the European Union (EU) supported project on "Deepening Africa's Trade Integration through Effective Implementation of the AfCFTA". The evaluators concluded that the work undertaken during the first phase supported the AfCFTA ratification process, and in turn the launch of the operational phase of the AfCFTA on 7 July 2019 in Niamey, following ratification by 22 Member States. The SCM agreed that ATPC should systematize learnings from Phase I into the current EU-supported and even more ambitious Phase II of the project with a view to maximizing impact and maintaining AfCFTA momentum.
Following extensive and robust discussions and brainstorming, the Meeting concluded with the endorsement of a set of recommendations for 2020. David Luke, Coordinator of the African Trade Policy Centre, emphasized that the recommendations were jointly owned by ATPC and SCM Members, and that partnerships with the AUC, RECs, the new AfCFTA Secretariat, private sector, civil society and academia, would be key to delivery. A leading recommendation of the SCM, and in line with ECA's triple nexus agenda on the interlinkages between humanitarian, development and peace actors, was for ATPC to more comprehensively mainstream gender, youth, human rights and climate change across its activities.
Commenting on the outcome of the meeting, David Luke noted that "the meeting achieved its purpose which was to ensure accountability to our stakeholders in terms of our financial management, substantive programming, overall impact and guidance for the future direction of our work. Notably, ATPC was tasked by the meeting to update previous ECA research and knowledge products on industrialization, to take on board horizontal, vertical and sectoral policy dynamics for African and foreign private investment in industrial development in this new era of the AfCFTA, the fourth industrial revolution and increasing concerns over climate change and sustainability".
Mr Kenneth Bagamuhunda Director-General for Customs and Trade at EAC, officially closed the meeting by thanking ECA for its continued support to the EAC Secretariat which has enabled the region to progress on its regional and continental trade agendas.
