NSA Workshop held at Burco
(September 11 & 12, 2007)

In his brief presentation Mr. Jaffar Mohamed explained not only the objective of the workshop but also said that the workshop was meant to raise the awareness of different categories of participants (Private, Professionals and NGO groups) to the main pillars of the Cotonou and the ACP-EU cooperation agreements.

Mr. Mohomed Ali, the facilitator of the workshop, elaborated key ideas of both Cotonou & ACP-EU agreements. He said that articles two and four of the Cotonou Agreement have special significance because of they emphasize on dialogue in the ACP-EU partnership. He explained to the participants the meaning of the country strategy paper (CSP) and cited that the first country strategy paper was made for Somaliland for the first time in history with the help of Norway in January 2007.

In his first presentation the facilitator said that although the EC office in Somalia was closed in 1991, the EC did not completely abandon Somalia but rather established liaison offices such as ECHO as a financial focal link.

Mr. Mustafe Sa’ad of the NSA Working Group made a brief presentation on two subjects:

A) The Current Working Group:
The NSA working groups consists of 15 members. Their composition includes different NSA components such as the private sector and NGOs. Establishing a viable effective working group is by no means an easy task. It is a process-oriented one. For that reason, patience, consensus and information-sharing are a prerequisite to the formation of an effective working group.

B) On Cotonou & CSP-EU partnership agreements:
These are important agreements that would give participants a perspective as effective NSA stakeholders, and to understand the role of NSA more clearly through reading and comprehending these partnership agreement documents.

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