Support to the East Africa Community in Tripartite Free Trade Area Negotiations

Description of the project and Services provided:

The scope of this project is to improve the effective participation of officials from the EAC Secretariat and the member states in the Tripartite FTA negotiations through a regional approach.

The staff strived to work primarily via the EAC Secretariat, rather than one-to-one with individual member states as TAF already has substantial national grants in place with Uganda and Burundi.

The results of the project are:

• Stronger regional knowledge base and better inform negotiating positions in the ongoing tripartite negotiations.
• Higher capacity in technical issues and negotiations management strategies with improved inherent capacity and expertise of the EAC Secretariat and Partner States to effectively participate and help to drive the ongoing negotiations.
• Logistical support to overcome the resource constraints and ensure the EAC Secretariat and Partner State’s presence at regional-level alliance building and Tripartite Trade Negotiation Forum meetings.

The services provided are:

• Budget preparation
• Training
• Policy advice
• Training needs analysis