TradeMark Africa (TMA)’s Côte d’Ivoire Country Programme held its inaugural National Oversight Committee (NOC) meeting on September 20, 2024, following the recent signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Trade.
The NOC is part of TMA’s governance structure and is chaired by a high-level official within a Government Ministry. It is mandated to provide strategic advice on programming that is responsive to national objectives, review project proposals and business plans related to the programmes they are overseeing and may recommend that the Board approves them. The committee also reviews implementation progress and resolves challenges. Its members include representatives from relevant government ministries and departments, private sector apex bodies, civil society organisations and development partners. During the meeting, participants noted that the launch of TMA’s programming in Côte d’Ivoire was timely and critical for advancing trade facilitation in the country and across West Africa.
The opening session of the series of the engagements of the day, including the NOC meeting, was presided over by Patrick Olivier Daipo, Deputy Chief of Staff, representing Côte d’Ivoire’s Minister of Commerce and Industry, Souleymane Diarrassouba. The NOC meeting was chaired by Kalilou Sylla, Director General of Foreign Trade at the Ministry.
“This National Oversight Committee will play a vital role in monitoring and coordinating various trade facilitation activities in Côte d’Ivoire to ensure the desired results of the interventions are achieved,” Mr Sylla noted.
“Stakeholders from the public and private sectors, as well as civil society, agreed to design and implement high-impact trade facilitation activities to enhance trade and regional integration. Among the most urgent priorities identified were improved policy measures, customs modernisation and automation, digitalising and streamlining the processing of trade certificates, improving infrastructure at key trade and transport corridors. The also deliberated on prioritising measures to eliminate trade barriers, particularly for small cross-border traders,” said Anthe Vrijlandt, Director of Strategy and Partnerships at TradeMark Africa.
She added: “Interventions that streamline trade processes, reduce the time and cost of trade, and foster a more business-friendly environment attract investment in trade-related activities, thereby catalysing economic growth and job creation. Their significance in boosting intra-African trade, through the establishment of a single market for goods and services, cannot be overstated. This is a key pillar of the African Continental Free Trade Area.”
The NOC meeting comes hot on the heels of a newly signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the country’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry and TMA. The agreement is designed to enhance the competitiveness of the business environment and improve trade infrastructure along key corridors, including Abidjan-Lagos, Abidjan-Dakar, and Abidjan-Ouagadougou.
To advance these objectives, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, in collaboration with TMA, recently organised a two-day meeting bringing together trade officials from various agencies in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. The discussions centred on strengthening trade efficiencies and cooperation between the two neighbouring nations, emphasising the importance of improving cross-border trade flows.
TradeMark Africa marked its expansion into West Africa with the opening of its first regional office in Accra, Ghana, in January 2023. The office’s focus is on trade facilitation along the vital Lagos-Abidjan corridor. Since then, several regional and cross-border collaborations have been launched, including key partnership agreements with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), to boost trade and integration in the region.
