Provision of technical assistance to the national projects of the PACE Final report.

The Regional Technical Assistant, Dr. Nicolas Denormandie, was based at the Regional Coordination Unit of PACE in Bamako (Mali). He was covering initially seven French-speaking countries within Western and Central Africa, including 6 coastal countries (Guinea, Cote d'Ivoire, Togo, Benin, Gabon, and Congo) and 1 non-coastal country: Central African Republic. Following a discussion between RTAs and the regional coordinator during the CBPP meeting in Conakry (February 2004), a reshuffle of countries covered was set up. A switch between Congo Brazzaville and Ghana was agreed upon. Then, from November 2004, an 8thcountry was added to the RTA's coverage, namely Chad, following the reallocation of Dr Andrea Massarelli, former national TA, who became the Eastern Africa Regional TA. Finally, following the departure in October 2005 of Dr. Hans Krebs from the PACE project, who was in charge of 5 countries, the 2 RTAs of Bamako were requested to share the remaining countries which they inherited for their new contracts (with a new coverage of 10 countries each). Therefore the RTA was attributed 2 additional countries : Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea making a total of 10 countries. After one year and half, that is from May 2003 to October 2004, the Regional Technical Assistant's contract was in fact renewed twice for one year each : first from November 2004 to November 2005 and then from November 1st, 2005 up to the termination of contract on October 31st, 2006. The extension of work of the RTAs through a short term expertise for another 1, 5 months (until December 23rd, 2006) has been approved by the EC delegation on October 27th, 2006. It is undergoing through two 45 man — days short term contracts, following the termination of the long term appointment as scheduled on October 31st. Although the beginning of the short term contract had not yet been finalized with GTZ or SATEC Developpement, the RTA was able to enter negotiations with SATEC Developpement within days and complete these negotiations. Finally a meeting in France with SATEC, Guyancourt was held on November 3rd, and the RTA was able to travel the following day to join the simulation exercise of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza carried out in Senegal. Surprisingly on 22" of November, no action whatsoever was taken on behalf of GTZ-IS management for the terms of reference of both RTAs. During the last twelve months (January to June 2006), the RTA has visited at least one time the ten countries of his coverage, reaching from the very beginning of his first contract an average of 5 (or even 7 for Benin) visits per country (except: Congo Brazzaville with 2 visits before the country was reallocated to the Central RTA, and newly allocated countries : Chad, Equatorial Guinea and Cameroon were visited respectively twice and three times each). RCI was revisited due to the Avian Influenza outbreak (4thvisit) after one year and half period without mission due to insecurity. In general the occurrence of Avian Influenza in Nigeria in February 2006 followed by (Egypt), Niger in the same month, Cameroon in March, Burkina Faso and Cote d'Ivoire in April in the sub region implied a change of priorities in the initial agenda of support missions from the RTA. In fact RCA and Guinea were finally visited later compared to the initial planning, in order to focus the support on countries affected by Al or neighbouring ones considered at high risk (such as Benin, Togo and Ghana). Despite continuous support from the regional coordination, the serious and numerous delays for WP consolidation which were noticed in the previous reports added to the cumbersome EDF procedures led to the following situation on 31stOctober 2006 on the 10 countries covered (cf. chart p 41) : On October 31st, 2006, one can observe quite a disparity with regards to WP status. It has to be noted that the figure of the WP doesn't match with the number of year of activities carried out since some WP are shorter and some longer than a year. Some EC Delegation even approved purposely short time Work Plan in order to assess the proper management of funds (ex : Gabon, Equatorial Guinea). • 2 countries are closing their 6th WP or 2"d year extension WP : Benin, CAR • 2 countries are closing their 5th WP or 2ndyear extension WP : Togo, Gabon (rider), • 3 countries are closing their 5th WP or 1St year extension WP : Chad, Ghana, Guinea Conakry (all riders), • 1 country is closing its 3rdWP or 1St year extension WP since it was not allowed to engage its 4th WP or 2nd year extension WP by the local delegation due to administrative issues (despite an agreement given by the PCU : Cote d'Ivoire • 2 countries are closing their 3rdWP or 2ndyear extension WP : Cameroon (rider for additional funds), Equatorial Guinea (5 month period) The main idea, which comes out following those support / follow up missions given during the whole period, is that there is still a significant discrepancy between the countries covered as far as the accomplishment of the 4 PACE thrusts is concerned.