Three one-stop borders on the cards for West Africa

At least three one-stop border posts are currently being developed in West Africa in an effort to speed up the movement of cargo in the area. The border posts in question – at Nigeria and Benin, Ghana and Togo and Niger and Benin – are being developed with funding from the European Union. Several other joint border posts – the term used in West Africa to describe one-stop border posts – are already being planned along the Abidjan- Lagos corridor. According to Barney Curtis, executive director of the Federation of East and Southern African Road Transport Associations (Fesarta), in order to facilitate the process the countries in question are working on a supplementary regional act. In addition manuals are in the process of being drafted along with elaborate sensitisation programmes to facilitate the transition of the facilities into one-stop border posts. “At the same time the Borderless Alliance, a private sector organisation in West Africa, has made considerable progress in solving problems along the corridors in the region. They have managed to set up Border Information Centres at six borders already.” In southern Africa only one one-stop border post is currently operational and that is Chirundu between Zambia and Zimbabwe. But, said Curtis, border post operations are improving in southern Africa with several countries working hard towards establishing the necessary legal frameworks to allow for one-stop borders. Allowing for more integrated and coordinated border management and ultimately the faster turnaround of trucks, one stop border posts will ultimately lead to a decrease in logistics costs in Africa – one of the major challenges on the continent. INSERT ‘Several countries working hard towards establishing the necessary legal frameworks to allow for one-stop borders.’