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West African Authorities Acquire
Skills on Competition Analysis
Lome,
Togo,
December 17, 2009
Delegates
representing competition and sectoral regulatory authorities
from five member states of the West African Economic and
Monetary Union (WAEMU) have gathered in Lome (Togo) to
acquire knowledge and skills on competition issues over a
3-day training workshop being organised by CUTS
International. The workshop is being organised by CUTS in
association with ATC, Togo as a part of the 7Up4 project (www.cuts-ccier.org/7up4).
The 7Up4
project is a two-year research based advocacy and capacity
building project supported by DFID (UK), IDRC (Canada) and
Ministry for Foreign Affairs (Sweden) and implemented by
CUTS in four member countries of WAEMU - Burkina Faso, Mali,
Senegal and Togo. The three other project countries are The
Gambia, Ghana and Nigeria.
The project
has revealed a huge demand for capacity building on
competition issues among the agencies/institutions created
to handle competition issues in these countries. The
training workshop has been designed combining discourse on
theoretical aspects of competition law, with hands-on
training for undertaking competition analysis and
enforcement. It is anticipated that the event would
contribute towards better comprehension on competition
issues among the participants.
Over 25
participants from Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal and
Togo are participating in this workshop. The first day
consisted of sessions on introduction to competition policy
and law issues; and competition analysis. Horizontal
agreements and vertical restraints were discussed on the
second day. Abuse of dominance would be discussed on the
final day of the training. The sessions are being conducted
by renowned experts and practitioners on competition issues.
Real cases and illustrations cited by the resource persons
provided the opportunity for the participants to work in
groups to undertake competition assessment, promoting
discussions and offering scope for mutual learning.
Interesting cases were also brought to the fore by the
delegates which have been discussed in the training.
As some of
the participants noted, it was a first experience for them
to participate in such a training workshop, and they hoped
that such events would also be held in the future. CUTS has
plans to organise training workshops in each of the seven
countries of the 7Up4 project, early next year. A similar
training workshop for authorities from the Anglophone
project countries is scheduled between 13-15 January 2010 in
Abuja, Nigeria.
For more information, please
contact:
Rijit Sengupta, +91 98292 85928,
rsg@cuts.org
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