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Livit Mugejo-Correspondent
On Tuesday 4 October, The Herald published my article on COMESA calling on all Zimbabweans to utilise various COMESA projects to improve their living standards.
As a result of that article, I was stopped by a colleague at my workplace who asked me a very interesting question: Is Zimbabwe a member of COMESA?
On reflection, I realised that the question was important and that we sometimes take some important things for granted.
If this question was coming from my workplace, how about the general public who are supposed to benefit from various COMESA projects?
I then realised how serious the work before me was. COMESA and its member states have a big task to robustly carry out public awareness campaigns and educate members of the public about regional integration.
Fortunately for COMESA is the fact that lack of publicity for its programmes has already been identified as the missing link in its efforts to encourage full participation by its member states.
COMESA has actually urged its members to carry out awareness campaigns for its programmes and projects, Zimbabwe included.
Zimbabwe is a full member state of COMESA and its citizens are free to participate in COMESA projects. The purpose of my first article on COMESA was to create public awareness and conscientise all the stakeholders for improved utilisation of available opportunities and instruments.
However, I realised from the question above that there is need to explain the genesis of the organisation itself and what it stands for so that the benefits available to its member states are understood in their proper context.
COMESA is the successor organisation to the former Preferential Trade Area (PTA) which was formed in 1981.
COMESA was then formed in December 1994 to replace the PTA. It comprises 21 African Member States that came together with the aim of promoting regional integration through trade and development of natural and human resources for the mutual benefit of all people in the COMESA region.
COMESA is the biggest Regional Economic Community (REC) in Africa, the largest market for trade and investments and forms a major market place for both internal and external trading with population of over 586 million, a Gross Domestic Product of US$805 billion, a global export/import trade in goods worth US$324 billion.
In terms of geography, COMESA covers almost two thirds of the African continent with an area of 12 million square kilometres.
With its specialised institutions strategically located, COMESA has positioned itself as a better-placed organisation to advance regional integration.
Among these specialised institutions that were created by COMESA to support implementation of its integration agenda are the African Trade Insurance Agency located in Nairobi, Kenya; COMESA Clearing House located in Harare, Zimbabwe; COMESA Competition Commission located in Lilongwe, Malawi and the COMESA Regional Investment Agency located in Cairo, Egypt.
There is also the African Leather and Leather Products Institute located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; COMESA Federation of National Associations of Women in Business (COMFWB) located in Lilongwe, Malawi; The Trade Development Bank (TDB) located in Bujumbura, Burundi and The COMESA Re-Insurance Company (ZEP-RE) located in Nairobi, Kenya.
The Alliance for Commodity Trade in Eastern and Southern Africa (ACTESA) is located in Lusaka, Zambia; COMESA Monetary Institute located in Nairobi, Kenya; COMESA Council of Bureaux on the Yellow Card Scheme located in Lusaka, Zambia; Regional Customs Transit Guarantee Scheme based in Lusaka Zambia; COMESA Business Council based in Lusaka, Zambia; COMESA Court of Justice based in Khartoum, Sudan and the Regional Association of Energy Regulators for Eastern and Southern Africa (RAERESA) located in Lusaka, Zambia.
There are many more COMESA institutions in various countries. As we are all aware, colonialism left our countries divided by the artificial boundaries that were created.
As a result, Regional Economic Communities like COMESA were specifically created to overcome this problem so that the divisions are bypassed through integrating markets, goods and services, which facilitate the flow of trade, capital, energy, people and ideas.
Through COMESA, just like any other regional integration groupings, countries are able to improve market efficiency and spread the costs of public goods among themselves such as large infrastructure projects.
Furthermore, countries are able cooperate to decide their policies and reform those lagging behind; have a building block towards global integration; and above all, reap other non-economic benefits such as peace and security. Most importantly, the usually unspoken objective of any regional integration group is to gain strength through solidarity ahead of the dog-eat-dog cut-throat competition for economic survival in the jungle of the world.
The idea is to develop cohesion and build a single direction in its members’ activities and COMESA is leading in that regard.
This is easily achieved if there is no hegemony among its members who insist on its point of view. Its member states take into consideration the views, policies and interests of each other. This makes it possible for member states like Zimbabwe to use COMESA as a vehicle to advance its domestic policies.
It is against this backdrop that the attention of all Zimbabweans is drawn to the various enabling programmes being implemented by COMESA that they can utilise their economic, social and cultural progress.
COMESA makes it easier for us to achieve the Nation’s vision of a “Prosperous and Empowered Upper Middle Income Society by 2030.”
It is in our national interest that regional integration be embraced. Since 1994 when PTA transformed into COMESA, it had established itself as a rational and progressive grouping for the developing countries and has become the most dynamic region of Third World countries, opening up its economies to trade and foreign investments.
By and large, COMESA has managed to transform from the Preferential Trade Area that it was in 1981, to a Free Trade Area (FTA) in 2000 and will soon transform into a Customs Union, which was supposed to materialize in 2009 but failed to reach the target date due to some work still to be done.
It is highly anticipated that the aspiration of transforming COMESA into a Custom Union will soon be achieved so that its members may completely remove trade barriers and lower or eliminate tariffs among themselves.
This will enable its members to apply common external tariff on imports from non-member countries.
Trade will be facilitated since non-members will be obliged to pay a single duty for the goods to cross the border into the Union and then trade freely with no added tariffs once the goods are inside the union.
A good example is what is obtaining in the European Union, a Custom Union where goods move freely without duty between its members.
We are encouraged that there are several cooperation taking place between COMESA and the EU. The EU funds quite a number of programmes being implemented by COMESA.
Livit Mugejo is the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and COMESA communications coordinator but the views expressed here are personal.
Online Reporter