Delegates from COMESA Countries arrive in Lusaka for Policy Organs Meetings

Over 200 delegates from the 19 COMESA Member States have begun arriving in Lusaka to participate in the 33rd meetings of the top decision making organs of the organization. The meetings will run from 1st to 9th December 2014 at the Government Complex.

The Policy Organs include the Council of Ministers, the Inter-Governmental Committee and the Administrative and Budget Committee.

The meetings will review progress on implementation of various COMESA programmes including market integration, cross border economic infrastructure, industrialisation, institutional, policy and regulations, governance, peace and security, capacity building, gender and social affairs, resource mobilisation and technical cooperation. All COMESA institutions and specialized agencies will also present their progress reports.

The Administrative and Budget Committee will take place on 1 to 2 December 2014. These will be closed door session that will consider, among others the introduction of a Machine-Readable Travel Document (MRTD) to facilitate official travel by COMESA Staff in the region and beyond.

The Inter-governmental Committee (IC) which comprises Permanent Secretaries and Principal Secretaries in Ministries that implement COMESA programmes in Member States will meet on 4 to 6 December. It will consider reports from sectoral technical group and updates on the status of implementation of the policy decisions taken during the last Summit in Kinshasa in February 2014.

Policy recommendations arising from the IC meetings will be presented to the Council of Ministers on 8 and 9 December 2014 for decision making. The Council is responsible for overseeing the functioning and development of COMESA and ensuring the implementation of agreed policies hence its decision binds Member States and the Secretariat to implement them in the subsequent period.

This time, the policy organs meeting are coinciding with the 20 Anniversary of COMESA since its transformation from the Preferential Trade Area (PTA) on 8 December 1994. The Secretariat is planning to celebrate the event with all stakeholders including delegations from all Member States attending the policy organs meetings.