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Desiderio Consultants Ltd. is a think tank and a network of independent professional international development consultants. We specialize in promoting and influencing customs, trade, and transport policies in African nations. Our goal is to drive policy and regulatory reforms that improve regional integration and enhance Africa's participation in regional and global value chains.
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News

SADC set to launch the electronic Certificate of Origin (eCoO)

Friday, 15 May 2020 15:50

The SADC Ministerial Task Force on Regional Economic Integration, at its 16th meeting held in in Gaborone on 13 March 2016, approved the SADC Trade Facilitation Programme (TFP), also known as “Comprehensive Trade Facilitation Program (CTFP), which outlined a harmonised approach to trade facilitation for SADC Members. The SADC TFP covers 28 trade facilitation measures (TFMs) clustered around four pillars: transparency, predictability, simplification, and cooperation, roughly corresponding to the measures contained in the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement. One of the TFMs includes the implementation of an electronic certificate of origin (eCoO) for products traded between the SADC countries.

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COMESA announces the adoption of regional trade facilitation guidelines

Friday, 15 May 2020 10:17

After the East Africa Community (EAC) and the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), also COMESA adopted guidelines for ensuring a seamless application of trade facilitation measures in the region during the COVID-19 pandemic. The guidelines aim at facilitating the movement of goods and services (particularly essential goods) across the region.

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Trends and challenges for regional integration in Africa

Monday, 11 May 2020 07:35

The African Regional Integration Report (2019) is the first edition of a series of yearly reports of the African Union Commission that provides a comprehensive review of the status of integration and of innovative policies for accelerating the ongoing regional integration process in Africa, describing projects, initiatives and best practices developed within each of the eight Regional Economic Communities (RECs) officially recognised by the African Union (Arab Maghreb Union/UMA; Community of Sahel-Saharan States/CEN-SAD; Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa/COMESA; East African Community/EAC; Economic Community of Central African States/ECCAS;  Economic Community of West African States/ECOWAS; Intergovernmental Authority on Development/IGAD; and Southern African Development Community/SADC), and analysing the main obstacles to a closer regional integration among African economies, as a crucial driver for the realization of Africa’s development agenda.

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Informal trade in Africa hit by COVID-19 harder than other sectors

Friday, 08 May 2020 09:41

A new article published on the UNCTAD website analyses the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic on women small-scale and informal cross-border traders in Africa.

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Leveraging trade facilitation to defeat the Covid-19 pandemic

Wednesday, 06 May 2020 14:27

During the COVID-19 crisis, trade is proceeding at a slower pace. The pandemic has spotlighted border agencies' challenge to safeguarding public health while avoiding disruptions to the free movement of goods. These agencies are undertaking unprecedented measures to speed up import, export and transit of goods, in many cases by extending their working times, suspending certification procedures or mitigating Customs investigations, foreign exchange inspections and origin verification, in order to avoid disruption of ongoing procedures. At the same time, they must cope with recent restrictive measures to trade whilst preserving trade flows and supply chains. On the other hand, traders must cope with the proliferation of export restrictions through new controls and license requirements, especially on medical devices. As a result, border posts are crowded, controls have multiplied, and truck queues are getting longer. A new paper from UNCTAD presents the main trade facilitation solutions, supported by country cases, that can address the challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

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