General presentation
French cooperation is a strategic and privileged partner for OHADA. His contributions in the development of OHADA in Africa and its promotion throughout the world are manifold: financial, technical and administrative.
Brief description of the various components of partnership between OHADA and French cooperation.
France is engaged with OHADA since its inception (1993), as Technical and Financial Partner (TFP). This special partnership is reflected in a constant and renewed support of the French authorities in favor of OHADA, which is according to the PTF at a time:
- private sector growth factor and investment – domestic and international – via legal and judicial security of business activities;
- economic and social development tool serving an area gathering more than 225 million;
- a vehicle for promoting a “shared prosperity”, the report Védrine “Africa-France: Partnership for the Future”;
- a vector of integration and regional stability in West Africa and Central, interacting with other regional economic organizations.
Thus, from the creation of OHADA, French cooperation has contributed to an endowment fund (1993-2003 amounting to CHF 40 million) managed by UNDP, which allowed including the establishment and functioning of institutions OHADA.
A Priority Solidarity Fund (FSP) to “support the actions of the OHADA” 3 million (2006-2012) was then designed, implemented and monitored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Development (Branch of the Democratic Governance), according to three components:
- computerization of records and furniture Trade Credit (RCCM), Benin, Congo – Brazzaville, Chad and Togo;
- the distribution of documentation and training in OHADA law across its various Member States;
- the development of the organization and communication within the OHADA.
Meanwhile, a technical assistance system was implemented (from 2008) to strengthen joint institutions building with the provisioning of Technical Experts International (ETI). In light of the needs of the common institutions and the Member States, in accordance with priorities of the Council of Ministers of OHADA, France has continued its support to OHADA by strengthening through the following actions (non exhaustive list) :
- Strengthening implementation of the OHADA law through improved dissemination of case law with the redeployment of one of the two ETI to the President of the Common Court of Justice and Arbitration (CCJA);
- Support for regional integration and the enlargement of the OHADA via maintaining an ETI with the SPO, which has the task of contributing to a better articulation of OHADA with other regional organizations, and that promotion of OHADA with countries in Anglophone space and Portuguese;
- Strengthening ownership of the OHADA law by judicial and economic actors via training sessions in two key countries – Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Côte d’Ivoire – from entrepreneurs and traders in the formal and informal sectors, and through the realization of practical tools to promote the implementation of the benefit of the 17 Member States (Standard Forms of collective procedures and commercial companies), as well as the distribution of documentation and training tools in the DRC;
- Support for the computerization of the RCCM of Cameroon through a Trade Capacity Building Program (2013-2017) implemented by the French Development Agency (AFD) to the tune of 1.5 million euros;
- Improving the efficiency and attractiveness of OHADA via an inter-donor concerted strategy launched with the Francophonie International Organization for improving the coordination of international assistance (World Bank, European Union , African Development Bank …) and to promote a constructive dialogue with the institutions of the OHADA and the Member States.