The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa traces its generation to the mid 1960s. The thought of regional economic co-operation received considerable drift from the buoyant and optimistic temper thatcharacterised the post-independence period in most of Africa. The temper so was one of pan-African solidarity and corporate autonomy born ofa shared fate.
It was under these fortunes that. in 1965. the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa ( ECA ) convened a ministerial meeting ofthe so freshly independent provinces of Eastern and Southern Africa to see proposals for the constitution of a mechanismfor the publicity of sub-regionaleconomic integrating. The meeting. which was held in Lusaka. Zambia. recommended the creative activity of an Economic Community of Eastern and Central African provinces.
An Interim Council of Ministers. assisted by an Interim Economic Committee of functionaries. was later set up to negociate the pact and initiate programmes on economic co-operation. pending the completion of dialogues on thetreaty. In 1978. at a meeting of Ministers of Trade. Finance and Planning in Lusaka. the creative activity of a sub-regional economic community was recommended. get downing with a sub-regional discriminatory trade country which would be bit by bit upgraded over a ten-year period to a common market until the community had been established.
To this terminal. 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 created an Inter-governmental Negotiating Team on the Treaty for the constitution of the PTA. The meeting besides agreed on an declarative 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 December 1981 at which the Treaty set uping the PTA was signed. The Treaty came into forceon 30th September 1982 after it had been ratified by more than seven signatory provinces as provided for in Article 50 of the Treaty.
The PTA was established to take advantage of a larger market size. to portion the region’s common heritage and fate and to let greater societal and economic co-operation. with the ultimate aim being to make an economic community. The PTA Treaty envisaged its transmutation into a Common Market and. in conformance with this. the Treaty set uping the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa. COMESA. was signed on 5th November 1993 in Kampala. Uganda and was ratifieda twelvemonth later in Lilongwe. Malawi on8th December 1994.
It is of import to underscore the fact that the constitution of PTA. and its transmutation into COMESA. was in conformance with the aims of the Lagos Plan ofAction ( LPA ) and the Final Act of Lagos ( FAL ) of the Organisation ofAfrican Unity ( Organisation of African integrity ) . Both the LPA and the FAL envisaged an evolutionaryprocess in the economic integrating of the continent in which regional economic communities would represent edifice blocks upon which the creative activity of an African Economic Community ( AEC ) would finally be erected.
