CUTS International opens Ghana centre,
to aid regional integration
IANS, August 30, 2013
India's research and advocacy
organisation CUTS International has opened a centre here to
help West African countries in their regional integration.
"We welcome the opening of the CUTS Centre in Accra and look
forward to its active participation in providing research
support to Ghana and the west African region on critical
economic policy issues," Ghana's Foreign Affairs and
Regional Integration Minister Hanna S. Tetteh said at the
inauguration earlier this week.
"CUTS has developed a successful methodology of connecting
grassroots to the policy makers especially through applied
research, advocacy and networking," Tetteh said, delivering
the CUTS 30th anniversary lecture on "Regional Integration
as Tool for Poverty Reduction in West Africa".
Speaking of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS),
Tetteh said "ECOWAS is celebrated within and outside Africa
as one of the most innovative and advanced among the
continent's regional economic communities".
ECOWAS leaders will meet in October to decide on issues
critical to regional integration like the Common External
Tariff (CET), and the Community Levy.
The CET seeks to harmonise and bring in the convergence of
national fiscal, monetary and trade policies of member
states for the attainment of economic integration by the
15-nation economic community with a combined population of
more than 300 million people.
Saying that CUTS had earlier done a study on the costs of
economic non-cooperation in south Asia, which showed a gain
of $2 billion to consumers if tariffs were rationalized,
CUTS secretary-general Pradeep S. Mehta said the
organisation was ready to do a similar study for the ECOWAS
region.
The Accra centre is CUTS' third office in sub-Saharan
Africa.
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