Source: EURLEX
Language: en
Format: md

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| CALL FOR EVIDENCE  FOR AN EVALUATION / FITNESS CHECK | |
| Title of the evaluation | Evaluation of the Economic Partnership Agreement between the EU and Southern African Development Community EPA States |
| Lead DG – responsible unit | Directorate General for Trade, Unit TRADE.C.1, African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries |
| Indicative timetable  (planned start date and completion date) | Start date: 28 February 2023   Completion date: Q2-2024 |
| Additional information | Southern African Development Community (SADC) - Trade - European Commission (europa.eu) |
| A. Political context, purpose and scope of the evaluation | |
| Political context | |
| The EU-SADC EPA is a development-oriented free trade agreement between the EU and six countries from the Southern African Development Community (SADC): Botswana, Eswatini (previously Swaziland), Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa. It was signed on 10 June 2016 and entered into provisional application on 10 October 2016 for all Parties to the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), except for Mozambique, for which it entered into provisional application on 4 February 2018. Angola participated in the negotiations of the EU-SADC EPA, but did not end up signing the EPA. In February 2020 Angola submitted a request to join the EPA, however, the launching of negotiations with Angola is still pending agreement by the SADC EPA States.  The EU-SADC EPA is the first and only regional EPA in Africa to be fully operational (all partners are implementing the tariff cuts set out in the EPA). The Agreement seeks to contribute to reducing and eradicating poverty, promoting regional integration, economic cooperation and good governance, promoting the integration of SADC EPA States into the world economy and improving trade policy capacity in SADC EPA States, among other objectives.  In addition to provisions on trade in goods between the Parties, the EU-SADC EPA includes provisions on trade facilitation, cooperation (including development cooperation), technical barriers to trade (TBT) and sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS), as well as provisions on trade and sustainable development. In addition, the Parties have the possibility (in particular the SADC EPA States) to invoke safeguard measures under certain conditions. The EPA also contains rendezvous clauses, including on services and investment, and provides for the possibility to widen the scope of the agreement in areas such as competition and intellectual property rights. The EPA also contains a Protocol on geographical indications (GIs) and trade in wines and spirits (Protocol 3), which currently applies only between the EU and South Africa (but any other SADC EPA State may adhere to this Protocol in relation only to GIs). | |
| Purpose and scope | |
| The purpose of the evaluation is to assess the implementation and impact of the EU-SADC EPA 7 years after the start of its provisional application. The evaluation should determine whether the EPA has been fully and correctly implemented and the extent to which the EPA contributed efficiently and effectively to reaching its objectives.  The evaluation responds to the general commitment of the Parties to monitor the operation and impact of the Agreement in order to ensure that its objectives are achieved, that it is properly implemented and that its benefits for their respective populations, in particular the most vulnerable groups, are maximised (see Article 4 EPA). In addition, under Article 116 EPA, the Parties committed to review the Agreement in its entirety no later than 5 years after its entry into force (i.e. by October 2021). The evaluation should feed into this review process and provide inspiration for further discussions on the review. The findings of the evaluation will also be relevant to the ongoing implementation of the EPA and may be used as a basis for discussions with the partner countries on lessons to be drawn regarding its implementation. The evaluation will be supported by a study.  In terms of geographical scope, the study will cover both the SADC EPA States and the EU with regard to the functioning, use, and awareness of the EPA and the impact on the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development. The evaluation period starts from the provisional date of application of the agreement for each SADC EPA country.  The evaluation will cover all thematic areas of the EPA. However, the focus will be on trade in goods and impacts on investment. Development cooperation is also a key area, in particular as regards private sector development and an enabling business environment. The evaluation will also assess economic, social, gender and human rights, including labour rights, as well as the environmental effects of the various elements of the Agreement. | |
| B. Better regulation | |
| Consultation strategy | |
| The overall objective of the stakeholder consultation is to ensure that all relevant parties have an opportunity to express their views on the impact of the EPA and to propose improvements to its functioning that could form the basis for policy recommendations. The consultation activities should help to determine the areas of the EPA that are functioning well and those that need more work by the Parties. The consultations will gather concrete examples, evidence and experiences that can complement and underpin other sources of information (as described below under ‘data collection and methodology’). The aims are to gather material that will illustrate particular opportunities and challenges resulting from the EPA; to identify sectors and stakeholders that have benefited from or been negatively affected by its implementation; to collect evidence to help analyse the reasons for such effects; and to contribute to the identification and the conduct of the case studies.  The main stakeholders are:  ·on the EU side: public authorities at EU, Member State and local level, EU Chambers of Commerce in the respective countries, businesses and business associations, labour unions, non-governmental organisations, academia and the general public;   ·on the SADC EPA side: the SADC Secretariat (including the EPA coordination unit), public authorities at national and local level, national trade and investment promotion agencies; businesses and business associations, labour unions, non-governmental organisations, academia and the general public.  The main consultation activities will be:  ·Two civil society dialogues in Brussels (expected: Q2-2023 and Q2-2024).  ·A 12-week online public consultation open to stakeholders in the EU and in the partner countries, planned to be launched in Q3 and Q4-2023, accessible on the Commission's central public consultations page. The questionnaire will be in English, French, German and Portuguese, while replies will be possible in any of the 24 official EU languages.  ·A series of interviews, consultations and workshops gathering relevant actors from public sector, businesses and civil society, both at regional level and country level in the SADC EPA States and some EU Member States (Q2, Q3 and Q4-2023).   ·Interviews with SMEs (possibly in specific business sectors) in the SADC EPA countries and the EU, to capture their particular experiences, most likely taking the form of an SME Panel through the Enterprise Europe Network.  The factual summary report and a synopsis report summarising the results of the consultation activities will be published on the consultation website once all consultation activities are closed.  The consultation activities will be complemented by communication actions to disseminate information on the evaluation process and results. Channels will include social media and email newsletters as well as the Commission’s and a separate evaluation website. | |
| Why we are consulting? | |
| The overall objective of the stakeholder consultation is to ensure that all relevant parties have an opportunity to express their views on the impact of the EPA and to propose improvements to its functioning that could form the basis for policy recommendations. The consultation activities should help to determine the areas of the EPA that are functioning well and those that require action by the Parties to ensure proper implementation of the agreement. | |
| Target audience | |
| Stakeholders from the public and private sector, including Chambers of Commerce, exporters’ associations, businesses/consumers and business associations/consumer organisations, national trade and investment promotion agencies; labour unions, non-governmental organisations, academia and the general public in the EU and the six SADC partner countries. | |
| Data collection and methodology | |
| The evaluation will build on previous studies such as: ‘Economic Impact of the EU-SADC Economic Partnership Agreement’ (European Commission, June 2016); ‘Sustainability Impact Assessment of the EU-ACP Economic Partnership Agreements – key findings, recommendations and lessons learned’ (Paris, PricewaterhouseCoopers, May 2007); annual implementation reports on the EPA issued so far; and relevant research and reports published by third parties.  An external study will be commissioned to gather information and evidence for the evaluation. The selected contractor will use a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. An appropriate quantitative model will be applied to assess the economic impact of the EPA, using macro- and micro-economic data.  A large share of the data needed for the evaluation is available from EUROSTAT and COMTRADE, as well as other databases. However, gaps may remain for some countries and for certain topics. Gathering company-level data in the SADC EPA States will enable a better analysis of the impact at micro-level. Qualitative data will be gathered through consultations, workshops, surveys and interviews.  Case studies will help to interpret the results of the quantitative analysis and may be used to respond to gaps in economic data. Case studies for selected sectors, products, cross-sectoral or thematic issues will provide an in-depth look at economic, social, labour and human rights and environmental impacts and will help identify factors that enable or hold back progress in achieving the EPA objectives. | |

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