EPA Review Annex Documents - DFID

2. Quantification of costs incurred during EPA trade negotiations
2.1. Cost of Trainings and workshops
The focus of this section is to show how resource constraints have impacted the country’s
negotiations as well as enumerating particular elements of the EPA negotiations (different from
other negotiation processes) which have made the negotiating process more or less costly,
challenging and difficult.
For the preparation of the EPA negotiations, the starting point was the establishment of the
NDTPF which as explained is composed of multi-sectoral institutions and organisations that are
involved in trade and development work. Representatives of the institutions were diverse and
had experience in a variety of professions (economists, lawyers, social workers etc).
The direct cost related to the EPA process include, training and workshops that were organised
for the NDTPF members and other stakeholders. These training workshops were mainly
focused on the dissemination and sensitisation of information on the Cotonou Agreement, the
concept of the EPA and its compatibility with the WTO agreement specifically with Article XXIV
of GATT and Article V of GATS. The main participants in these training workshops were NDTPF
members, stakeholders from government, private sector and NSAs. The training sessions were
organised in different Ethiopian regional government cities with the aim of involving as many
stakeholders as possible at minimum costs. The holding of these workshops in different regions
reduced cost of holding the workshops and did avoid inconveniencies of travel to the capital city,
Addis Ababa.
Funding of the training workshops came from a number of sources, among them, the COMESA
Secretariat which has contributed a total of Euro 10,000. OXFAM-GB has contributed Ethiopian
Birr 550,000 and Fredric Evert Eshetusting provided Birr 125,000. Moreover, Project
Management Unit (PMU) of the ACP Secretariat has financed two impact assessment studies in
relation to the EPA negotiation.
Besides costs of the training workshops other costs that were incurred include the preparatory
meetings of the NDTPF. The NDTPF meetings were held twice a month at the beginning and
once a month and then only when required. Though there was no direct budget that was
assigned for NDTPF meetings lasting only half a day in most cases, it is important to note that
sometimes the costs of those half day meetings were more or less the same as the cost for full
day meeting, especially in cases where professionals (whose consultancy costs were relatively
high) were part of the meetings.
2.2. Cost of Regional Meetings
The costs of regional meetings related to RNF meetings and dedicated session negotiations,
were covered by the IRCC. Before the EPA negotiation structure changed beginning of 2008, 13
RNF meetings and a number of dedicated sessions were conducted (Annex VII). For each RNF,
three negotiators from each ESA State were delegated (the chief negotiator, one from the
private sector and one expert from the sector the negotiation focuses on; agriculture, fisheries,
services, etc).
Direct cost for the negotiators include; round trip ticket, hotel accommodation (normally bed and
breakfast), and daily allowance for lunch, dinner and other miscellaneous expenses. The costs
of air ticket depend on the place where the meetings were taking place. For instance, a ticket to
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