Kenya plans to establish new OSBPs at land borders with Ethiopia and Somalia

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Kenya plans to establish new One-Stop Border Posts (OSBPs) at land borders with Ethiopia and Somalia to spur regional trade.

On September 8, 2020, the World Bank approved under the Horn of Africa Initiative (HoAI) a funding from for the construction of the Horn of Africa Gateway, a project aimed at upgrading a 748-km long road in Kenya connecting Isiolo to Mandera via the city of Wajir.

The project, set to start in January 2022, is expected to open up the economy in the northern Kenya counties by better connecting them to Ethiopia and Somalia. The road is currently in a bad status and therefore little used. Moreover, it is also notorious for the poor levels of security, a factor that currently disincentives transport companies to use it. To address such constraint, the Kenya government announced that it will deploy mobile police patrols at every 30kms along the road.

In particular, the establishment of an OSBP in correspondence of Mandera is expected to spur growth in import and export trade and thus facilitate legitimate trade and collect the correct revenue. Ethiopia and Kenya also share an OSBP in the town of Moyale, where recently a joint manual was adopted by border agencies of both countries to coordinate their respective operations at the border.