An article recently published on The East African deals with a particularly important topic, namely the low degree of ratification and implementation of Treaties, Recommendations and Decisions adopted by the African Union (AU). The article notes that most of regulatory policies, tools and frameworks adopted at continental level, after many years of adoption, still suffer from a poor level of implementation or domestication at national level, basically because of a lack of political will by the AU State members. The consequence is that a number of commitments and goals agreed at continental level get stuck in their operationalization phase. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement - together with the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights - seems to be an exception, as it is close to universal ratification. But also in this case, the risk is high that after the initial enthusiasm in adopting such Agreement, governments can delay its operationalization by becoming cautious, due to a lack of buy-in by those that should benefit from such Agreement, or to doubts that it will penalise or sacrifice national interests. This is why events like the Africa Prosperity Dialogues, planned for the end of January in Accra, Ghana, are particularly critical to maintain a high degree of commitment to the AfCFTA by African Heads of States and Governments.

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As a new year starts, it’s time to take stock of results made by Customs in the previous year. Despite the negative impact of the Covid-19 and of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on African nations, most of African Customs seem to have achieved satisfactory results in terms of revenue collection. However, there are some exceptions, like Cameroon, where the National Treasury announced a loss in customs revenue of nearly 20 billion CFA francs (34 million USD) in 2022, mainly ascribed to the implementation of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) in force, respectively, with the European Union (EU), and the United Kingdom (UK). This figure was revealed on January 9, in Yaoundé.

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