Comesa 11th Summit

The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) was created in 1994.  The following twenty countries are members of COMESA:

Angola, Burundi, Comoros, Democratic Republic of Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mauritius, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sudan, Swaziland, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. 

The member states, with a population of over 374 million, have agreed to co-operate in several areas including trade, and promote peace and security in the region.  The Government of Djibouti (GoD) is a fervent supporter of COMESA uniformity of customs among its twenty members.


Djibouti will host COMESA 11^th Summit in November 2006.  This is the first time that Djibouti will be organizing a summit of such scale so the preparative started in January 2006 with various high level meetings.  In February 2006, the Government of Djibouti (GoD) passed a Decree creating 12 sub-committees responsible each of a specific activity related to the preparative of the Summit.  The sub-committees are headed by an Ad Hoc committee presided by the Prime Minister.  According to GoD officials, the major concern remains the lodging of all the international participants since Djibouti has very limited hotel space.  As a last resort, the GoD is considering the hiring of a cruise ship to accommodate some of the Summit attendees.

The planned agenda of the Summit meetings is as follows:

November 6 and 7: Administrative and Budget Committee,

November 8-10: Intergovernmental Committee,

November 10 and 11: Business Summit,

November 12 and 13: Council of Trade Ministers,

November 13: Peace and Safety Commission,

November 13: Ministers of Foreign Affair,

November 14: Finalization of Ministers Council Report,

November 15 and 16: First Ladies Round Table,

November 15 and 16: Heads of State Summit, .

The GoD is in the process of creating a special website, www.comesa2006.dj for the event