The emergence of North African countries is going through a major transformation of their economy and raises the question of the process to guide these structural changes. While some economies in the North African sub-region are more diverse than others, the performance of most countries in the region remains generally too heavily dependent on commodity prices or weather conditions. North African economies are poorly diversified and are generally specialized in sectors or in some dynamic products with low added value. Moreover, the issue of unemployment in North Africa implies the need to create several million jobs in the coming years. However, only a significant increase in growth can help meet this challenge. This type of increase (called ‘explosive growth’) is only documented in cases of industries and services development that comes with structural transformation, hence the need for a structural transformation of the North African economies. One of the levers that guided the structural transformation of many developing countries is their growing participation in global trade through the export of products increasingly diverse and sophisticated.

The overall objective of the EGM is to validate the report of the study on “Developing regional value chains to accelerate the diversification and sophistication of North African economies“ by North African countries.

 More specifically, the meeting will be devoted to:

• A discussion on the study reports, which will include supplementary information by countries and regional institutions to clarify or deepen certain aspects including sharing of best practices;
• A comment and validation of the results of the report at national and regional level by the participants, and in particular to prioritize the potential RVCs highlighted in the results of the study. 

The EGM organized by ECA-NA office, in cooperation with UNIDO, will be attended by participants from all North African countries, UMA, and other relevant intergovernmental organizations. Participants will also include representatives from civil society and the private sector, as well as institutional partners such as the AfDB, IRU and WTO.  Participants from member States will involve a combination of Senior Officials and experts from ministries in charge of industrialization, trade, foreign affairs and international cooperation, planning and economic development, finance and infrastructure, and other relevant sectoral ministries.

[Aide memoire]