Regional agreements are key to creating a new era where it will become increasingly easier to move goods, capital and people around the continent.
That’s the view of Catherine Grant Makokera, director of Tutwa Consulting Group, who points to the Southern Africa Customs Union (Sacu) as one of the most important regional customs agreements. “It is critical for business but is too often taken for granted,” she said during a recent trade workshop held in Cape Town.
It has created opportunities for South African companies to move their products duty- and quota-free in the region, and the borders between the five countries (South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Lesotho) have become relatively easy to navigate.
There were however some key challenges with regional integration, she said.
“There is a very real implementation gap considering there are lots of good policies, programmes and protocols. It is also not always clear who the beneficiaries of regional integration are. Do they have the power to push for greater implementation?”
Limited monitoring and accountability, weak secretariats, donor dependence and overly ambitious agendas further complicated the picture, said Makokera. “There is also a very constrained space for non-state actors to engage.”
She said exporters should take advantage of customs and trade agreements such as Sacu and the free trade agreement that was functional across large parts of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
