Trade Policy
The Regional Opportunity
Despite regional agreement within the East African Community (EAC) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) on regional integration and harmonization of trade policies, the East and Central Africa region continues to be affected by fragmented policy formulation and implementation and unilateral actions by individual governments that go against negotiated regional policies and the spirit of regional integration.
COMPETE’s Strategic Approach
Regional trade policies for COMPETE targeted value chains continue to be weak, either due to lack of harmonized policies or slow implementation of agreed-upon policies. COMPETE is strengthening regional economic communities (RECs) capacity to analyze the impact and monitor implementation of regional policies. COMPETE also works to strengthen the private sector’s capacity to advocate for policy change through the formulation of evidence based data to support policy formation. COMPETE’s trade policy agenda targets cross-cutting policy constraints that affect regional value chains and transit activity.