The fifteenth Summit of the COMESA Authority of Heads of State and Government opened in Lilongwe, Malawi this morning Friday 14th October 2011 at the new State House. His Excellency Professor Bingu wa Mutharika welcomed His Majesty King Mswati III and other Heads of State to Malawi at the historic Summit.

Other Presidents who have jetted in for the Summit are Omar al Bashir of Sudan, Pierre Nkurunziza of Burundi, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda.

Vice Presidents and Prime Ministers from Zambia, Kenya, Union of Comoros, Rwanda, Djibouti and Seychelles have also arrived for the Summit. More Heads of State are expected to arrive this morning.

Malawi is widely regarded as the birth place of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) because it was in Lilongwe that the then PTA was transformed to COMESA in 1994. During that time, President Bingu wa Muthrika was the Secretary General of the Preferential Trade Area (PTA). The Malawian leader is credited for being the architect of the COMESA treaty and is also regarded as the brains behind regional integration in eastern and southern Africa.

At today’s Summit, His Majesty King Mswati III will be handing over power of Chairmanship of COMESA to President Mutharika. The King has been at the helm of COMESA for one year from August 2010.

Under his chairmanship, Swaziland steered COMESA to deeper regional integration levels. COMESA’s intra-trade levels increased by about US$5 billion from a low of US$12.7 billion to US$17.4 billion.

This quick recovery from the financial crisis has been attributed to various factors, including the macroeconomic stability of the COMESA region and the existence of the COMESA Free Trade Area, together with the support from key COMESA institutions such as the PTA Bank and the African Trade Insurance.

The EU and China have been the leading export markets for COMESA member States as a whole, with COMESA coming third ahead of the United States. However, COMESA continued to be a leading export market for some member states notably Burundi, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia. Under Swaziland’s leadership, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo have made strides to join the Free Trade Area.

COMESA region will now focus on the Customs Union whose transition period ends in June 2012. The COMESA Customs Union was launched in 2009 but a transition period was immediately put in place to allow member states to align their policies to allow for the full implementation of the Customs Union.

The Summit in Malawi is expected to review progress that has been made by the nineteen member states in this regard.

The issue of the tripartite grand Free Trade Area by COMESA, the East African Community and the Southern African Development Community is expected to be high on the COMESA agenda. Deserving journalists from the COMESA region will also be awarded during the Summit. These are journalists who submitted entries to the annual COMESA media award competition. The award recognizes excellence in economic reporting in the region.

The Summit will also discuss issues of democracy, human rights, peace and security, investment and sustainable development in the region.

Asmara, 3 September 2010 – (Shabait) – The Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr. Estifanos Habte, participated in the 14th COMESA Summit that was held in Lozitha city, Swaziland, from August 31 to September 1.

In the summit conducted under the theme: “Harnessing Science and Technology for Development,” the COMESA member states reached understanding on the need to reinforce efforts and allocate enough budget in research and communication technology, set up joint science and technology parks, as well as utilize biotechnology in the agriculture sector and nano technology in the health sector.

The summit also assessed the developments registered in the tripartite-free-trade among the COMESA, the South Africa Development Community and the East African Community, besides giving work directives as regards the finalization of the process.

Taking note of the significance of the prevalence of peace and security in the COMESA region towards attaining development and facilitating the economic integration process, the summit held extensive discussion and adopted resolutions and recommendations.

Also in a meeting held earlier beginning from August 18, the unilateral governmental committee, the Ministers and Foreign Ministers Council reviewed the tasks accomplished last year, in addition to submitting the proposal of the action plan for next year to the COMESA member states summit for approval.

COMESA is a regional organization comprising 19 countries from Eastern, Southern and Northern Africa.

NAM

(Reuters) – Leaders from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), a group of 118 countries, said the world needs a financial system that is fairer to developing states which have suffered most in a crisis caused by rich countries.

The presidents of Cuba, Egypt and others were addressing a NAM summit in the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

The summit on Wednesday and Thursday is the 15th held by NAM, a grouping that has struggled to stay relevant after it was founded during the Cold War by countries which did not want to be aligned either with the Soviet Union or the United States.

Below an extract from Reuters about the background of NAM:

ORIGIN OF NAM:

* The Bandung Asian-African Conference in April 1955 was instrumental in founding the Non-Aligned Movement. That meeting gathered delegates from 29 countries, many newly independent from their colonial rulers.

FOUNDING NAM SUMMIT:

* The NAM was formally set up in 1961 in Belgrade by developing countries that chose not to align with the United States or Soviet Union to avoid becoming caught up in Cold War politics. Twenty-five countries were represented.

* The founding fathers were President Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru of India, President Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt, President Sukarno of Indonesia and President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana.

* Nasser, a champion of Arab nationalism, was a hero to Arabs for defying the United States and colonial powers Britain and France in the 1950s and 1960s. “We don’t want to become a part of any sphere of influence for any power. That is what the United States has tried to do with us,” he said.

NAM TODAY:

* The movement now has 118 member states, with 15 observer states, representing two-thirds of the members of the United Nations and half of the world’s population. It has struggled to find a role since the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union’s collapse.

* The 118 are composed of 53 states in Africa, 38 in Asia, 1 in Europe and 26 in Latin America and the Caribbean.