Annual Operational Review 2003 ESA Region EC Co-operation

The Cotonou Agreement attaches particular emphasis to regional economic integrationand the role of regional organisations (see Art.28-30 and Annex IV, Art. 6-14). Regionalorganisations with an economic integration mandate are privileged partners for regionalco-operation support.Based on this new orientation the geographical configuration for regional co-operation inEastern and Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean (ESA region) is different for the 9thEDF. The new ESA region, as decided by the ACP side, comprises the combined ACPmembership of four regional organisations: the Common Market for Eastern andSouthern Africa (COMESA), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD),the East African Community (EAC) and the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC). Allmembers of these four organisations are ACP countries apart from Egypt (member ofCOMESA) and France, on behalf of its Overseas Department of la Reunion (member ofIOC).The ESA region comprises thus the following countries:Angola, Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, DR Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar,Malawi, Mauritius, Namibia, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania,Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe. Ten out of these countries also participate in the SADCRegional Indicative Programme.The EDF 9 RSP/RIP was signed on 19 November 2002 in Kampala by the four regionalorganisations and Director General Koos Richelle.The Operational Review of EC/ESA regional cooperation is the first of its kind and stemsfrom a desire to mirror the requirement of the Cotonou Agreement (Article 5 of AnnexIV) which stipulates that Annual Operational Reviews (AORs) will be carried out inrespect of all Country Strategy Papers/National Indicative Programmes (CSPs/NIPs).The carrying out of an AOR for Regional Cooperation is to a large extent based on theidea that an annual review of the regional operations and implementation of the ESARSP/ RIP may provide a useful monitoring tool and a mechanism to identify at an earlierstage possible problems or challenges in terms of implementing the RIP. This exercisewould in turn also facilitate the preparation for the Mid-Term Review (MTR - arequirement of Article 11 of Annex IV of the Cotonou Agreement) that is to beundertaken in early 2005 and give an indication of what can be expected from thisreview. Another rationale is to complement what is looked at in the AORs of theCSPs/NIPs from a regional perspective.These are the main objectives with this AOR which will look at the operations anddevelopments in EC/ESA cooperation for the year 2003. In addition, this exercise willalso cover the operational review of the cooperation activities under the 6 — 8 EDF withthe EA region and with the IO region. While the review will concentrate on developmentco-operation aspects, trade and political dialogue matters will also be covered.