Ratified in August 2016, the Interim economic partnership agreement (EPA) between Côte d’Ivoire and the European Union (EU) is “an agreement for trade and development ensuring free access to the European market for Ivorian products, with a view to supporting economic growth via trade, investments and employment. The interim EPA also establishes an institutional partnership between Côte d’Ivoire and the EU on trade issues”.
Since early 2020, GRET has been supporting the Ivorian civil society convention (CSCI) for monitoring of this agreement. Supported by the European Union, this project was launched on 17 September in Abidjan, with almost two hundred participants in attendance. Laurent Levard, a specialist in agricultural and trade policies with GRET, is in charge of conducting a study on the risks and opportunities of the EPA for the Ivorian population, in particular its most vulnerable sections. The CSCI will support this study to implement actions for monitoring of the EPA and to develop advocacy directed at public authorities. The provisional conclusions of the study, which was completed at the end of October, were presented and discussed during the project launch event.
In addition to this study, GRET is also in charge of conducting training actions for Ivorian civil society stakeholders on trade policies, EPAs and advocacy. These actions were carried out as part of a one-week training workshop in September.
