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RATES and COMESA Review Regional Agricultural Trade

RATES fully supports the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa's (COMESA) efforts to promote regional integration to increase the value and volume of regional agricultural trade. As part of this collaborative partnership, RATES and the COMESA Secretariat held a meeting on February 3rd, 2005 in order to review the regional agricultural trade program. The meeting was held at the COMESA Secretariat Headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia and attended by, among others, the RATES COP and technical team.

During the February meeting, the COMESA Secretary General observed that the success of RATES was largely due to three major aspects. He noted that the RATES project had, from the very beginning, used a consultative approach between USAID and COMESA. He also stated that COMESA recognized early on that the RATES project had a clear and limited set of objectives with specific areas of action. Finally, COMESA noted that the involvement of stakeholders in the implementation process had been critical in contributing to the success of the project.

The Secretary General noted that a characteristic feature of the program which had been embraced by both COMESA and RATES was "not fearing but facing challenges" as exemplified by the decision to deal with maize which, at the time was considered a politically sensitive issue, but which has now become the flagship of RATES under the slogan, "Maize without Borders".

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