Signing of the Lomé IV Convention

A new Fourth Convention with a ten-year duration is signed in Lomé, Togo, between the Twelve of the European Economic Community (EEC) and the 69 countries of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group, in order to promote and accelerate the economic, cultural and social development of the ACP states, as well as to deepen and diversify their relations in a spirit of solidarity and mutual interest. This Convention includes various innovations as it incorporated issues related to population and demographics, development of service activities, the environment, the private sector and businesses and their role in stimulating growth and diversification of ACP economies, improving trade access of ACP products to the Community market, and issues concerning the reduction of ACP states’ debt burden and support for their structural adjustment. Moreover, in the context of cooperation in the field of commodities, the Community and the ACP states, recognizing the need for joint efforts to address the structural difficulties arising in many commodity sectors, set as main objectives the diversification, horizontally and vertically, of ACP economies, and in particular the development of processing, marketing, distribution and transport activities and improving the competitiveness of ACP commodities in global markets, through the rational reorganization of their production, marketing and distribution activities. The Convention entered into force on September 1, 1991.
On November 4, 1995, an Agreement to Amend the Fourth Convention was signed, aimed at increasing the effectiveness of Community support for the development of ACP states by modernizing and adapting the Convention’s instruments, without questioning the fundamental principles governing their cooperation, especially the principle of partnership. The Agreement also contained a new Financial Protocol (the first, of five years duration, expired at the end of February 1995) for the second five-year period of the Convention’s implementation. Due to accessions, new countries were included in the Convention as the EU then consisted of 15 member states and the ACP group of 70.