regional integration: linking regional … you will agree with me that this topic is extremely ......

REGIONAL INTEGRATION:

LINKING REGIONAL AND NATIONAL PROGRAMMES

PRESENTATION BY

MR. SINDISO NGWENYA

COMESA SECRETARY GENERAL

AT THE EU-REGIONAL SEMINAR

25 MAY 2017, SHERATON HOTEL, DJIBOUTI

Your Excellency, Mr. llyas Moussa Dawaleh, Minister of Economy and Finance

in charge of Industry and EDF National Authorizing Officer, Djibouti,

Your Excellency, Mr. Stefano Manservisi, Director-General of the European,

Commission's Directorate General for International Cooperation and

Development (DEVCO),

Your Excellency, Mr. Koen Doens, Director for EU-Africa Relations, East and

Southern Africa, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, European Commission's

Directorate General for International Cooperation and Development (DEVCO)

Your Excellency, Mr. Koen Vervaeke, Managing Director Africa, European

External Action Service

His Excellency, Amb. Gama Mohamed Hassan, Minister of Planning,

Investment and Economic Development

My Colleagues the Chief Executive Officers of Sister Regional Economic

Communities

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen

Allow me from the onset, to use this opportunity to thank the organizers for the

invitation extended to me to participate at this very important event. Let me also

thank the Government and people of Djibouti for the warm welcome that has

been extended to us since our arrival. It is a privilege and great honour for me to

participate and contribute to this discussion on regional integration with

emphasis on linking regional and national programmes. I am sure, chairman

that you will agree with me that this topic is extremely broad to be tackled

within the time allocated for this presentation. I will however, subject to time

constraints, endeavour to highlight some few points that in my view are critical

and vital.

Distinguished Delegates

Ladies and Gentlemen

Linking regional programmes to national programmes is a key priority.

Pursuant to this, regional organisations are legally mandated through their

treaties to ensure that this is executed diligently. Through the TREATY

establishing the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa region in

1994, the Heads of State and Government laid a very strong foundation and

ground work for regional integration wherein under article 6 (c) of the

COMESA TREATY, one of the fundamental principles is that there shall be

“Inter-State co-operation, harmonisation of policies and integration of

programmes among member states”. The high level policy and legal basis for

linking regional programmes to national programmes is clear. Subsequently,

COMESA policy and operational documents were drafted ensuring harmony

between regional and national programmes.

The current COMESA Medium Term Strategy (MTS, 2016-2020) was drafted

with this in mind. Ladies and Gentlemen, to avoid the danger of being too

abstract by bombarding you with theories, I will in my presentation make

reference to this MTS, to illustrate key priority regional programmes that have

to be harmonized with national programmes. I will also draw on my

experience with various international and regional cooperating partners. The

COMESA Treaty outlines a number of political and technical structures that are

responsible for linking regional and national programmes. The structures

include the following:

The Council of Ministers

The Secretariat

The Committee of Governors of Central Banks

The Inter-Governmental Committee

COMESA Technical Committees

The Consultative Committees of the Business Community and other interested

groups



Based on the principle of subsidiarity, the above structures have supportive

roles, primarily driven by the need to ensure co-operation, harmonization,

consistency and linkage of regional and national programmes in various

sectors; such as peace and security, agriculture and food security,

industrialization and private sector development, infrastructure, trade

facilitation, climate, and social development programmes. Appropriate legal

instruments, regulatory directives, policies and protocols are used to facilitate

the development and implementation of COMESA regional programmes that

are then expected to be transposed at national level, pursuant to the COMESA

Treaty provisions of articles 10, 11, and 12 on Regulations, Directives and

Decisions”

Through the TREATY, there has been unwavering dedication, resolve,

determination and commitment by our Heads of States and Government to

regional integration. As such, the political commitment at the highest level

among COMESA Member States on linking regional programmes with national

programmes is not in doubt. This is reflected by bold decisions made over the

years towards deeper integration consistent with the Treaty provisions. It is

clear therefore, that there is consensus that regional and national programmes

should be harmonized and linked to each other. However, there have been

obstacles to the effective linking of national and regional programmes. These

challenges appear at all stages of the Programme Cycle. Ranging from:

How the policy dialogue and programming is done;

The way actual regional programmes are identified and formulated;

The way the budgeting and financing process is executed, and;

The approaches used in implementing, monitoring and evaluating

regional and national programmes.

Allow me to highlight some of the problems faced at the programming,

identification and formulation phases. It must be noted that COMESA policy

organs have recently approved the Medium Term Strategic Plan (MTSP) for the

period 2016-2020. Key development and strategic objectives under this new

MTSP cover the following main priority areas:

a. Industrialisation

b. Regional Infrastructure

c. Market Integration

d. Investments and Private Sector Development

e. Gender Equality and Social Development

In the spirit of harmonizing regional and national programmes, the expectation

is that all COMESA regional programmes are identified and formulated in a

way that respects the above priorities including ensuring ownership, alignment,

and harmonisation and managing for results. The other important issue relates

to the need to have appropriate sequencing of these priorities. While all these

priorities are supposed to be executed, it is important to note that member states

have specifically identified the need to address supply side constraints. In the

process, they have recommended the front-loading of those regional

programmes whose objectives is to address the identified supply side

constraints at national level.

A cursory examination of different regional programmes in the COMESA

region reveals that a higher share of the programme activities and resource

allocation is used for facilitation, coordination, capacity building and other

‘soft’ public sector projects. The main concern is that such programmes in most

cases are prepared without the involvement of the private sector who are

supposed to be the key drivers of regional integration. Whereas, it is not in

dispute that smart investments in public goods facilitate private sector

investments, this may not have been the case as these investments do not result

in "crowding in" of the private sector. This may partly explain why the EDF

support at both the national and regional levels may not have achieved the

expected results and impacts among other reasons.



From the foregoing, one may be excused from asking a rhetorical question as to

why these investments have not been catalytic in "crowding in" the private

sector? One possible explanation is that there have been no radical reforms in

the way that the national and regional programs are conceptualized, designed

and implemented. This notwithstanding the laudable efforts by both the African

countries and the cooperating partners to draw lessons from previous funding

cycles. Unfortunately, these reforms have in some cases been halfhearted in that

they have tinkered with the conventional model of development cooperation. In

my view and assessment, this is not surprising as the key players in the

programming are the bureaucratic elite with a strong bias on procedures and

processes and not on tangible results and impacts. It is a fact that the

contribution by the private sector, civil society and other non-state actors has

been minimal.

It is against this background that the "destructive creation" of the existing

practices and policies through innovative smart partnerships between the public

and private sectors is urgently required; otherwise doing the same thing over

and over again will result in the perennial blame game by different actors

involved in development cooperation. This observation is consistent with the

new Germany Marshall Plan for Africa in its observation that “it is not the

Governments that will create the long term employment opportunities but the

private sector1”.



The rationale for addressing supply side constraints takes into account the need

to transform COMESA economies away from perennial over reliance on

primary commodities and low value added products towards the promotion of

industrialization and value addition. This is meant to enhance structural

transformation, competitiveness, innovation and growth. Therefore any attempt

at formulating regional programmes not addressing identified root causes of

underdevelopment, is bound to face challenges at implementation level. Such

regional programmes may be perceived by member countries to have limited

short and long term benefits. This partly explains why there has been limited

appetite to transpose at country level those programmes that have little to do

with economic structural transformation. It is therefore important for regional

programmes to be harmonized with key priorities and be complementary to

programming taking place at national level including strong involvement of the

private sector.

Programming at regional level should ensure ownership and harmonisation

through involvement of a wide spectrum of relevant national stakeholders.

Regional organisations should be allowed to exercise their coordinating

mandate by clarifying regional strategies and ensuring broad dissemination of

information and involvement of relevant stakeholders (private sector and non-

state actors). To this effect, a recent transposition survey within the COMESA

1 P. 5 of the Germany Marshall Plan, Key Point 4 of 10: Entrepreneurship

region has observed that slow progress in terms of mainstreaming of regional

commitments in the national development plans has been higher for those

programmes perceived by member states as barely enhancing their

competitiveness and ability to trade.



It is in this context, that most member states have struggled to deal with the

removal of certain Barriers to Trade and Business delaying the

operationalization of the COMESA Customs Union and the launch of the

Common Market. As highlighted earlier, COMESA has implemented a number

of regional programmes with generous support from International Cooperating

Partners over the past few years. While these regional programmes have gone a

long way to assist the COMESA Secretariat to prepare trade facilitation

instruments and protocols in particular under the Free Trade Area (FTA), little

progress has however been achieved in terms of transposition of these

instruments at national level as member states took their time to ratify and

implement them.

During the transposition study, it was repeatedly mentioned by Member States

that supply side constraints, possible revenue losses from tariff reductions and

the competition associated with liberalization were the root causes of slow

progress in the signing, ratification and eventual implementation of

regional commitments. It is therefore important to design regional

programmes that target such root causes as opposed to those regional projects

that concentrate on addressing symptoms.

In addition, it has been noted that a significant share of regional programmes

concentrate on supporting downstream activities of regional value chains,

at the expense of the upstream activities. The upstream activities are

important as they deal with actual production, value creation and

transformation of inputs into the final tradable products. Member states

appear to favour regional programmes that complement them in addressing

challenges at the upstream level. It is therefore important for the regional

programmes to have a strong linkage with national programmes that seek to

restructure national economies away from high dependence on low value

primary and extractive commodities.



The above observation is consistent with the new German Marshall Plan with

Africa (2017), Africa Union agenda 2063, the African Development Bank’s

industrialization strategy for Africa (2016-2025) dubbed “Industrialize Africa”,

and the other Regional Economic Communities (RECs) strategy papers that

have identified that the problem of Africa is not solely of trade

liberalization/trade facilitation, but largely a function of its economic structure

that is oriented towards trading in low value commodities as opposed to high

value manufactured goods.

The above policies that are explained further below are all characterized by the

desire to assist Africa to move away from over reliance on export of primary

resources in the agriculture, forestry and mining sectors to more value added

exports of light manufactures. I am personally interested in the provisions of the

new German Marshall Plan for Africa in particular on value creation. This

plan rightfully advises that Africa must move away from being a continent of

raw materials and that partners such as Germany can assist Africa through both

regional and national programmes to focus more on economic diversification,

the establishment of production value chains, targeted support for agriculture

and small to medium enterprises.

Having noted the importance of ensuring that regional programmes are aligned

to key priorities at national level, it is important to ensure that once this is done

appropriate, coordination implementation, monitoring and evaluation

structures are functional at both regional and national level. Weak (or absent)

functionary structures and systems at national level to support the

programming and implementation of regional programmes have been

found to reduce ownership at national level. Further weak legal or policy

framework, sectoral representation, requisite authority and coordination and

accountability mechanisms have led to slow progress in the transposition of

regional programmes.

Regional programmes should therefore align with national programmes that are

oriented towards addressing such challenges. National mechanisms for

economic cooperation and integration need to be well equipped, capacitated

and structured to ensure that integration measures are effectively implemented.

There is need for technical assistance to, among others, undertake in-depth

studies, formulate policies, design and implement programmes; and assess

progress, impact and implications of programmes and projects. It also important

for various government departments, the private sector, non-state actors,

academia, women and youth groups, judiciary and legislative structures to be

familiar with regional commitments and programmes.



Lack of financial resources is among the most frequently cited reasons (by

Member States) for poor implementation of Council and Authority decisions. It

is on this basis that innovative resource mobilization strategies should be put in

place by member states in order to finance regional priorities and programmes

including the coordination work of the Secretariat. Last but not least, it is

important to put in place strong M&E systems to track implementation and its

challenges in order to inform planning and strategic decision making. It must

also be noted that International Cooperation Partners’ (ICP) technical and

financial support at country level in most cases remain poorly aligned to

regional integration priorities and targets.

In conclusion, my view is that for regional integration to work well, regional

and national programmes need to be harmonized by addressing the following:

• Regional programmes should be designed in close collaboration with

national authorities including representatives of the private sector and

non-state actors.

• Regional Programmes should be guided by national priorities and must

be harmonized with various phases of domestic and regional value

chains.

• National coordinating structures should be strengthened to execute both

policy and technical provisions of the treaties establishing regional

communities.

• Promote innovative smart partnerships between the public and private

sectors

• Partners can assist by ensuring that their support schemes are driven by

each region’s specific priorities in order to enhance ownership and

sustainability. In this regards, partners should consider assisting

COMESA and other RECs to address some of their supply side

constraints at country level. COMESA and other RECs would benefit

from continued improvement in business and social infrastructure and

promotion of sustainable sectorial policies.

• There is need to continue supporting efforts that promote regional peace

and stability in order to sustain regional programmes

• There is a need to change the way co-operating partners deliver their aid

by putting more emphasis on supporting the private sector to produce

more tradable goods as opposed to investing in public goods which may

be delivered through smart public private partnerships

• Partners should consider leveraging/blending grants with loans for their

support to be valuable and produce sustainable results and much more

support should be directed at developing the domestic resource

mobilization capability of partner States

I thank you

regional integration: linking regional … you will agree with me that this topic is extremely ......

Documents