The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) was formed in December 1994 to replace the Preferential Trade Area (PTA) agreement concluded in 1981. Although primarily an economic and trading bloc, COMESA promotes cooperation among member states in developing their natural and human resources, and works to achieve a wide range of objectives which include the promotion of peace and security in the region.
The COMESA is one of the pillars of the African Economic Community as a result of the Abuja Treaty in 1991. Egypt acceded the agreement in 1999.
As a member of COMESA, Egypt supports various initiatives to integrate ICT in the development process and is heavily engaged in efforts related to cybersecurity, postal sector reform, and communications market legislation, e-learning and e-waste management.
Egypt joined the COMESA in 1998; it strongly believes that Africans can effectively contribute to the development and the prosperity of the people of the region and the continent in general. Egypt has been an active player at the organization's meetings, whether held at the headquarters in Lusaka, Zambia, or hosted by member states. Egypt has also been especially dynamic in the areas of economic, trade, investment, and communication and information technology and tariff cooperation.
The ICT sector is one of the most active and dynamic areas that MCIT is an active player in, where it offered several scholarships to trainees from COMESA countries to train them in the different fields of ICT. MCIT maintains ongoing talks with COMESA to enhance cooperation between both sides.
Egypt is ardent to help COMESA in a variety of areas, especially cybersecurity, establishment and management of national and regional CERTs, Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), e-commerce platforms and e-signature, e-learning, investment and the establishment of business relations between the private sectors of the member States.
