1

COMESA weekly newsletter eThis bulletin is published by the COMESA Secretariat Public Relations Unit but does not necessarily represent views of the Secretariat. For Feedback: pr@comesa.int

Contact Address : COMESA SECRETARIAT, COMESA Center , Ben Bella Road P.O. Box 30051, 260 1 229 725, 260 1 225 107

www.comesa.int; email: e-COMESA@comesa.int

Issue #: 363 - 8th February 2013

to page 2

ReSAKSS Deepens Partnership with COMESAThe Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System for Eastern and Central Africa – ReSAKSS-ECA, based at the International Livestock Research Institute in Nairobi has linked-up with the Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA), a Specialized Agency of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, to collaborate in the area of agricultural research to enhance food security, promote crop diversification and augment the role of women in agriculture.

In an interview with e-COMESA, ACTESA Acting Chief Executive Officer, Dr Chungu Mwila, said COMESA is engaging with ReSAKSS, firstly in the assessment of soybean trade in the region because Soybean is the most important and preferred source of high quality vegetable protein for animal feed worldwide.

“Globally, soybean constitutes the largest share of cultivation and trade among biotechnology crops (GMOs). Today, more than 85% of the soybean traded in the world market is derived from GM soybean,” Dr Mwila said. European countries and and China are the major importers, mostly for stock-feed purposes.He added that the study is expected to generate information to be used to inform the implementation of COMESA’s regional biotechnology and biosafety policy, which is currently in draft form.

Dr Mwila further said that a future phase of the study would consider the economics of production and/or trade in

GM soybean and the likely implications on technology and/or product choices in the COMESA region. “The second area of cooperation will involve the participation of women in intra-regional agricultural trade in the COMESA region because previous studies have indicated that most women are involved in small-scale agriculture at national and regional level, but little is known about their actual contribution to economic growth and development.”

He added that the study has been identified as a priority by ACTESA, which has been given the mandate of linking small-scale agricultural producers in COMESA member countries to national, regional and international markets.

“This arises from the emerging concern that the impact of trade liberalization on women’s welfare in the region is not

well understood. A full understanding of the gender dimension to trade can bring significant change on how regional and national interventions should be prioritized under the CAADP process. The role of women in regional agricultural trade appears to be important, both as active agents in, and target beneficiaries of, development,” Dr Mwila said.

He continued to say that women play a significant role in informal cross-border trade in the region yet this role is neither recognized nor supported by policy. There is a definite need to promote an integration of gender needs and concerns in the design of policies for linking smallholder agricultural producers to national and regional markets.

“COMESA and ReSKASS have also partnered in assessing trade openness

Secretary-General Mr Sindiso Ngwenya held discussions with Mr Walid Farghal, Director General of the Annual Investment Meeting (AIM) Organising Committee from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the United Arab Emirates.Mr Farghal visited COMESA Secretariat and the two discussed ways of collaboration so that AIM can help attract investment to the COMESA region through their annual meeting of business owners and leaders.Mr Ngwenya expressed keen interest to work with Mr Farghal and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of UAE to improve the flow of investment to the COMESA bloc.

2

COMESA weekly newslettere

minimised especially on food staples in the region.

Dr Joseph Karugia, the Coordinator of ReSAKSS, said that COMESA needs to eliminate the existing tariffs on imports and exports of staple foods like maize, rice and others if the region is to compete with the products coming from outside the region.

“It is sometimes cheaper to import food staples from overseas or other regions rather than COMESA, a situation I think should stop. This is basically because of the high taxes each Member State imposes on imports, making it cheaper to do business with other countries, some of which are outside the African continent.”

He attributed the high taxes add to the cost of production, which he said are already too high in the COMESA region compared to other parts of the world.

And Stella Massawe, the Monitoring and Evaluation Expert at ReSAKSS, said that productivity of agricultural systems in the COMESA region was still low compared to other regions of the world, such as Asia and Latin America, and the region has become a net food importer.

Massawe said that if the trend continues, COMESA will continue to lag behind in terms of productivity in the agricultural sector and has since called on the region to come up with measures that will enhance high productivity rather than high production.

ReSAKSS and COMESA jointly organised a Seminary in Lusaka on 06 February 2013 under the theme: “Trade Openness in COMESA”.

The seminar will be followed-up by further consultations between ReSAKSS, ACTESA and other COMESA programmes, such as CAADP on the modalities for implementing the three identified studies which are being funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

in the region in order to expand intra-regional trade, which is a key objective of COMESA’s regional integration agenda.

He said there is a widespread perception that failure to implement agreed trade agreements has serious negative consequences on intra-regional trade performance.

“Under this activity, protection and market access indicators for selected food staples among COMESA member States were computed in 2011,” Dr Mwila noted.

“ACTESA’s Development Strategy and Operational Plan, formulated within the CAADP framework, have highlighted the importance of expanding regional trade to overcome the region’s main challenges of food insecurity and poverty and have identified inappropriate policies as a key challenge to realising the full potential of the region.”

Meanwhile Regional Strategic Analysis and Knowledge Support System – ReSAKSS has advised COMESA to ensure that barriers to trade are

Secretary-General Mr Sindiso Ngwenya making a presentation on Zambia’s current trade policy with regard to regional and international trade protocols. This was when he appeared before the Parliamentary Committee on Economics and Trade in Lusaka, Zambia. The committee is composed of Members of Parliament from the Zambian Parliament who look at issues regarding economics and trade. He also answered questions on how the regional integration agenda was progressing.

3

COMESA weekly newsletter e

Around 70 representatives from some 20 regional adaptation

knowledge platforms and others organizations came together on 05-06 February 2013, to network and exchange views on the possibility of coordinating their knowledge on climate change adaptation. COMESA also attended the two-day meeting and took advantage of the presence of the wide audience to identify potential partners that could enhance its Climate Change Initiative, particularly in the field of climate change advocacy.

The delegates learnt from the continental climate change adaptation networks such as the Asia-Pacific Adaptation Network (APAN) and the Latin America and the Caribbean network, known by its Spanish acronym (REGATTA). They shared experiences, successes, challenges and lessons learnt

The event was hosted at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya and it explored the potential for synergies and concrete collaboration between the various initiatives in order to optimize the use of resources for adaptation under the current global financial resource constraint.

The meeting agreed that Africa has a lot of knowledge, including traditional knowledge; that has not been full

coordinated to benefit the continent. It was further noted that during international negotiations Africa is often challenged by the failure to provide evidence based argument due to the absence of documented issues, as a result it was found fit that the Africa Adaptation Knowledge Network ( AAKNet) be adopted as a continental network to be responsible for coordinating, facilitating, harnessing and strengthening the exchange of information and knowledge, fostering and supporting strategic planning for exchange of adaptation knowledge. The delegates called upon the African Ministerial conference on Environment (AMCEN), an organ of the African Union, to recognize AAKnet so as to give it a legal and political operation modality.

This initiative that has comes soon after the Eighteenth Conference of Parties (COP18) that took place in Doha in November/Dec 2012 is meant to inject more energy and momentum into advancing the adaptation agenda.

On the final days of the workshop, all the regional adaptation networks highlighted that knowledge has a critical role to support planning and implementation of climate change adaptation but there are challenges such as fragmentation, lack of alignment of practices, insufficient understanding of end users and

overlap.

It is against this background that the regional networks adopted a declaration endorsing the Africa Adaptation Knowledge Network (AAKNet) as a continental network to be responsible for: coordinating, facilitating, harnessing and strengthening the exchange of information and knowledge, building new alliances to enhance collaboration and innovation, harmonizing and aggregating knowledge in useable packages tailored for addressing particular climate risks; fostering and supporting strategic planning and policy processes; and building capacity to provide short, midterm and long-term solutions to climate change. It was, however, emphasized that the role of AAKnet shall not replace the important role plaid by sub-regional, national, or local networks that are closer to the ground. Indeed for AAKnet to be successful it will have to rely on these already established networks.

The Africa Adaptation Knowledge Network (AAKNet) aims at harnessing valuable knowledge and experiences gained from such initiatives, and to share these with governments, Regional Economic Communities, regional authorities, and communities facing similar climate challenges.

Africa’s climate change adaptation knowledge boosted