L'intégration régionale en Afrique: Le cas de l'UEMOA

IV.5 Financing of the development

The creation of the Funds of Assistance to the Regional Integration of Member States (FAIR), within the framework of the installation of structural funds provided for in the Treaty.

This Funds is intended for the financing of the balanced installation of the Community territory, while contributing to the reduction of the regional disparities.

A program of interventions covering the eight Member States and the allowances

resources of a total amount of 118 billion francs CFA, over the period 2002-2006, were adopted.

The Treaty of the UEMOA, in its article 58, instituted a transitory system of compensation

depreciations of customs receipts undergone by certain Member States, because of setting

in place of the Customs union. Pursuant to the provisions of the aforesaid article, a Taking away

Community of Solidarity (GCV) was n°04 set up by article 16 of the Additional Act n°04/96 of 10 May 1996 instituting a transitory preferential tariff system exchanges at

center of the UEMOA and its mode of financing.

With the aim of ensure a perennial financing of the process of integration, mainly

by own resources and holding account at the same time resources available and those

necessary to the protected execution of the Work programme of the Union, the Conference of

Heads of State and Government, by Additional Act n° 07/99 of December 08, 1999, has

statement, to count on January 1, 2000, from 0,50 to 1% the rate of the GCV, the only resource

clean of the Union implemented, since July 1996.

At December 31, 2003, the amount of the GCV transferred with the Union by the Member States rises with

140 billion F CFA.

The products of the GCV transferred by the Member States of the UEMOA were used like

follows:

- Equipment of the Funds of Compensation of Depreciations of Customs Receipts for 85,3 billion F CFA, is 60,93%. The amount received by country is presented as follows: Benign 9,4 billion F CFA, Burkina Faso 15,8 billion FCFA, Ivory Coast 6,1 billion F CFA , Guinea- Bissau 1,31 billion F CFA, Mali 21,6 billion F CFA , Niger 24,3 billion F CFA, Senegal 9,5 billion F CFA and Togo 3,8 billion F CFA.

- Equipment of the Funds of Assistance to Regional Integration (FAIR) for 9,9 billion F CFA.

- Equipment of the Reserve funds for 200 million F CFA.

- Financing of the Budgets of the Bodies of the Union, under the years 1998 to 2003, for

35,1milliards of CFA.

- Loan in the State native of Niger for 8,1 billion F CFA.

- Equipment partial for an amount of 1,2 billion F CFA of the Funds Fiduciary which was created with FAO for the implementation of the Special Regional Program of Food Safety (PRSSA).

 

IV.6 it communication

The adoption of a policy and a five-year program of communication (1999-2004) gave a visibility to the actions and the ideal of the Union.

The organization, since 1997, of seven workshops and seminars of information and sensitizing on the building sites of the UEMOA, to which took share more than two hundred and fifty journalists and experts in communication of the eight Member States allowed the populations to impregnate various building sites.

Sensitizing information of the populations on the activities and the reforms

union, continuation of the production and diffusion of the two supports of

communication set up in 2002 was a priority of the Commission.

 Thus, the quarterly supplement «the Walk of the UEMOA» from now on became a support of reference on the Union. The magazine of television «Espace UEMOA» is diffused not only by the national chains of television of the Member States, but still by

satellite, on the international chain RFO-SAT which covers the countries of the Indian Ocean and of

The Pacific and on TV AFRICA of Gabon, which covers Africa Centrale and of the East, like

on the network cabled TPS, in Europe.

Of a monthly periodicity at the beginning, the magazine «Espace UEMOA» is, since the month

from September 2003, become semi-monthly. The diffusion of information on the Union and the reforms of the process of integration was continued, not only on the traditional supports (Official Bulletin, folders, booklets and plates) or through the support with the realization of special editions on the UEMOA in the international press and the media of the Member States, but still through the manufacture of books intended for the school establishments of space UEMOA. This action in educational circles is supported by a campaign of information and sensitizing that the Commission initiated with the assistance of the national sections of the Network of the Economic Journalists of UEMOA (RJE-UEMOA).

The creation of Internet sites and WWW.UEMAO.INT and WWW.IZF.NET as of the Network of the Corresponding Journalists of UEMOA (REJOC-UEMOA) are also actions of communication which largely served the Union.

Being the communication by Internet network, the year 2003 was remembered by

creation Association To invest it in Free zone, called to take the changing of the Committee of

piloting which had in load the administration and the management of the activities of Internet site

www.izf.net. This change became necessary because of the scale of the site.

Indeed, with, on average, a million two hundred and thousand pages read per month, the site izf.net is

today the first French-speaking site of Africa, the fifteen thousandths world site on

approximately a million listed sites. The site develops from now on around two shutters:

- a «general Space», gathering institutional, political information and of order

macroeconomic on the UEMOA, the CEMAC and the Member States;

- a «space Undertaken», with information on the companies and the private sector,

allowing to support the dialog and the exchanges between the economic operators of the South

on the one hand, between them and their counterparts of North on the other hand, in order to promote them

investments in the Union.

 

IV.7 - Institutional Operation

 

In the institutional plan, all the Bodies and Institutions provided for in the Treaty of January 10, 1994, are operational today.

The Court of Justice: January 27, 1995;

Commission: January 30, 1995;

The Interparliamentary Committee: March 27, 1998;

Court of Auditors: March 30, 1998;

The Regional Consular Room: April 3, 1998;

the Autonomous Specialized agencies that are the Central Bank of the States of West Africa (BCEAO) and the African Western Bank of Development (BOAD) existed already within the framework of the African Western Monetary Union (UMOA).

The Court of Justice which took part since 1998 in the Conferences organized by

the African Western Association of the High French-speaking Jurisdictions (AOA-HJF) in quality

of observer, adhered to this association in July 2003. This adhesion will enable him to be

in constant relationship to the high jurisdictions of space UEMOA and also those of the Francophonie.

Since the installation of its office in April 1998, the Regional Consular Room has

profited from the financings necessary to the starting of its activities, in spite of

recurrence of crises since soon six years. Indeed, to allow effective starting

its activities, the Conference of the Heads of State and Government, behavior in Dakar 29

January 2003, had adopted a project of Additional Act instituting a new period

three years transient for the financing of the Room, through a subsidy of

Commission of the UEMOA.