History of Comesa Essay

The Common trade for Eastern and Southern Africa traces its genesis to the mid 1960s. The idea of regional sparing co-operation received considerable impetus from the buoyant and optimistic mood thatcharacterised the post-independence intent in most of Africa. The mood then was one of pan-African solidarity and collective autonomy born ofa shared destiny.It was under these circumstances that, in 1965,the United Nations stintingal Commission for Africa (ECA) convened a ministerial run into ofthe then newly main(a) states of Eastern and Southern Africa to consider proposals for the establishment of a mechanismfor the promotion of sub-regionaleconomic integration. The clash, which was held in Lusaka, Zambia, recommended the creation of an Economic Community of Eastern and Central African states.An slowdown Council of Ministers, assisted by an Interim Economic Committee of officials, was subsequently frozen up to negotiate the treaty and initiate programmes on economic co-opera tion, pending the completion of negotiations on thetreaty. In 1978, at a meeting of Ministers of Trade, finance and Planning in Lusaka, the creation of a sub-regional economic community was recommended, fount with a sub-regional preferential trade area which would be gradually upgraded over a ten-year period to a common securities industry until the community had been established.To this end, the meeting adopted the Lusaka Declaration of Intent and Commitment to the Establishment of a Preferential Trade Area for Eastern and Southern Africa (PTA) and shaped an Inter-governmental Negotiating Team on the Treaty for the establishment of the PTA. The meeting also agreed on an common mood time-table for the work of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Team.After the preparatory work had been completed a meeting of Heads of State and Government was convened in Lusaka on 21st celestial latitude 1981 at which the Treaty establishing the PTA was sign(a). The Treaty came into forceon 30th Se ptember 1982 after it had been canonical by more than seven signatory states as provided for in article 50 of the Treaty.The PTA was established to take advantage of a larger market size, to share the regions common heritage and destiny and to drop out greater social and economic co-operation, with the ultimate objective being to create an economic community. The PTA Treaty envisaged its transformation into a Common Market and, in abidance with this, the Treaty establishing the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, COMESA, was signed on 5th November 1993 in Kampala, Uganda and was ratifieda year later in Lilongwe, Malawi on8th celestial latitude 1994.It is important to underline the fact that the establishment of PTA,and its transformation into COMESA, was in conformity with the objectives of the Lagos Plan ofAction (LPA) and the Final Act of Lagos (FAL) of the Organisation ofAfrican Unity (Organisation of African unity). both the LPA and the FAL envisaged an evolutionar yprocess in the economic integration of the continent in which regional economic communities would constitute building blocks upon which the creation of an African Economic Community (AEC) would in the end be erected.