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CUTS Representative in
the Official Zambian Delegation to the EPA Negotiation
Mauritius, July 25-August 03, 2007
The Eastern and Southern Africa (ESA)
countries and the European Union (EU) have been
negotiating for an Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA).
Since the launch of this negotiation in September 2002
Regional Negotiation Forum (RNF) has been held, including
a series of dedicated technical sessions on issues such as
agriculture, fisheries, and services.
The final round of ESA-EPA RNF will be held in Mauritius
from 25th July to 3rd August 2007. Vladimir Chilinya of
CUTS International’s Africa Resource Centre in Lusaka has
been invited by the Ministry of Commerce, Trade and
Industry, Government of Zambia to represent the civil
society group in this round of negotiation. This RNF will
decide whether ESA countries will sign an EPA or not by
December 31, 2007, which is the official deadline for
concluding the negotiation.
The Mauritius meeting will include dedicated technical
sessions on market access issues (such as tariffs,
safeguards, sensitive products, rules of origin), on
trade-related issues (such as competition policy,
investment, intellectual property rights, trade
facilitation, environment), and on developmental
dimensions of this proposed agreement.
CUTS has participated in the first ESA-EPA Non-State
Actors meeting held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in November
2006 and at the 11th Regional Negotiation Forum held in
Bujumbura, Burundi in February 2007. The participation of
the CUTS representative in the Official Zambian Delegation
to the final round of ESA-EPA RNF will involve providing
technical inputs to negotiators during the RNF and to the
ESA-EPA negotiation text during the technical sessions.
The organisation’s involvement in this negotiation
provided an opportunity to take forward the views of civil
society organisations from Eastern and Southern Africa on
different aspects and dimensions of the proposed Economic
Partnership Agreement between the EU and ACP (Africa,
Caribbean and the Pacific) countries. For doing effective
advocacy, CUTS has conducted research on various issues
considered in the EPA negotiation, including on
developmental benchmarking.
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