VPA annex on accompanying measures

Many Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) include an annex on accompanying measures that describes the supporting measures that stakeholders have identified as necessary for full implementation of the VPA.

Annexes on accompanying measures can include measures that require additional resources, regardless of whether funding is secure. Annexes on accompanying measures, therefore, help VPA partner country governments frame their needs and help donors target support.

However, although VPAs acknowledge the needs of partner countries for financial assistance to enhance systems and capacity, VPAs do not commit the EU to provide finance. Assistance to enhance systems and capacity may come instead through normal development channels. The EU and EU member states have existing legal instruments that guide the use and allocation of development assistance. VPAs instruct the parties to work with these existing instruments.

Accompanying measures may include:

• New structures and capacity needed to implement a VPA
• Mechanisms for financing VPA implementation and strategies for raising additional finance
• Measures needed to establish the legality assurance system and its component parts, or improve existing systems
• Legal reforms and enactment of new laws
• Promotion of FLEGT-licensed products on the EU market
• Development or regulation of domestic markets
• Ways to monitor the implementation and impacts of a VPA, including impacts on domestic markets
• Strategies for communicating with stakeholders about the VPA and its implementation and impacts