“Renewal and transformation” of the ACP

The need for “renewal and transformation” of the role of the Secretariat of the 79 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group of nations was voiced by its Secretary General, Mohamed Ibn Chambas at a meeting of ACP Council of Ministers in Brussels, 9-10 November.

The aim, said Dr. Chambas, was to give the ACP more international personality, keeping apace with changing global context and the institutional changes within the EU itself. A standing committee on the future of the ACP Group has been put in place by the Committee of Ambassadors.

“With the expiry of the Cotonou Agreement in ten years’ time and the coming into force of the Lisbon Treaty in December last year, the ACP Group feels that it’s time to seriously discussion very own future,” Carloyn Rodrigues-Birkett, President of the Council and Guyana’s Minister of Foreign Affairs told journalists.

Also high of the agenda of the Ministers’ meeting was delay in implementation of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) in ACP regions.

“We call on the EU to exercise to exercise bold political courage in showing the required flexibility and sensitivity to the needs of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), bearing in mind the range of existing flexibilities in the Regional Trading Agreements (RTA) are already accommodated under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) trading regime,” said Minister Rodrigues.

Strategic Plan 2011-2014
Dr Chambas said that “renewal and transformation” of the ACP Secretariat was part of the Secretariat’s Strategic Plan 2011-2014 aiming to give it increased executive authority to mobilise resources and implement development projects.

He explained that the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, which changed the EU’s internal institutional architecture with the setting up of a new External Action Service, had came into force in December 2009 but made no mention of the entity of the ACP Group.

“What has been rather troubling for us is the fact that the Treaty makes no express reference to the longstanding partnership between the EU and ACP. It is also unclear whether the European Development Fund (EDF) will come under the Commission budget and if our countries can feel entitled to a predictable source of development assistance as has been the case hitherto,” said Dr.Chambas.

The Cotonou Agreement (2000-2020) governing relations between the ACP and EU states expires at the end of the decade. Successive European Development Funds from EU member states’ development budgets provide development assistance to ACP countries. The current 10th EDF (2008-2013) has a total budget of €22.682bn.

“The EU’s neighbourhood focus with regard to Eastern Europe and North America; and its rapprochement with Latin America and the general thrust of its development policy call for the ACP to reinforce and affirm its unity and solidarity,” said Dr.Chambas in his opening address to ACP Ministers

He added that the rise of the emerging economies and nations generally referred to as the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China), offered a new window of opportunity.

“We can leverage on our numeric strength and moral authority to promote our collective interests while building new alliances with the emerging economies of Asia and Latin America,” said the Secretary General.

“Despite the size and geographic extent of the ACP, it has not exploited the power of its critical mass or its moral ascendancy as representative of the majority of the poor nations. Clearly, our organisation has to reinvent itself if it is to survive and remain relevant in the emerging global order,” he added.