The certificates were introduced by the common market protocol of EAC to make the businesses easier for the small-scale cross-border trade.

The achievements were among the outcomes of the project on capacity building to informal Women Cross Border Traders (WCBT) and duty bearers on gender mainstreaming in trade.

The project which was conducted by Tanzania Gender Network Program (TGNP) through financial support from the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) was intended to protect full economic rights and justice for women.

TGNP had previously collaborated with the Ugandan based Eastern Africa Sub-Regional Support Initiative (EASSI) to review the Non-Tariff Barriers Act 2015 of which, some findings were used to develop a one year project which ran from August 2017 to August 2018.

The WCBT Project Coordinator, Clara Kalanga, noted that TGNP managed to reach about 50 out of 150 businesswomen identified in cross border trade between Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.

According to Kalanga, other project objectives were to lobby for the implementation of the East Africa Elimination of Non-Tariff Barrier (NTB) Act 2015 in gender the responsive manner and to enhance women’s capacity and awareness of EAC rules and regulations pertaining to cross border trade.

“We put that objective to include information on rules of origin, health regulations, packaging requirements, standards, branding, customs classifications (tariffs, taxes, and duties) and intellectual property regulations,” she explained.

Also, Kalanga noted that through the project implementation, TNGP had to improve women’s capacity in accessing the regional and other international markets in the course of experience sharing and learning through case studies, application of ICT for market accessibility and market analysis.

Success

Kalanga pointed out that one of the factors that contributed to undermining women’s participation in cross-border trade was the lack of trainers in promoting their understanding and capabilities in cross border related business.

But she clarified that the implementation of WCBT project came up with a number of success stories like the expansion of a pool of resource persons on women cross border trading and entrepreneurship from two to 14, as a result of conducting training of trainers.

She also highlighted that the project contributed to the improved service provision at the borders such as a common list of goods that qualify for the Simplified Trade Regime (STR) and simplified customs documents to informal cross-border traders by customs officials.

“Assistance was also provided in completing customs documents for those who cannot read properly; in addition, answering of trade-related queries is provided by the information desk officers at the borders,” Kalanga noted.

She emphasized that through the WCBT project, TGNP has been able to identify and resolve a number of gender-related issues, including removing of police roadblocks along with the central corridor, the establishment of One-Stop Border Post (OSBP) and gender-sensitive services.

“We used to find women with infants following long border procedures including those who stand in the queue, but now the situation has improved,” she says.

According to Kalanga, the elimination of NTBs was previously advocated by TGNP and EASSI, in collaboration with other like-minded organizations who had reviewed the act and found it gender blind.

Kalanga disclosed that the beneficiaries have created their network to exchange various business information including markets, commodity prices, environment, travel and transportation.

“They also developed a gender app in order to increase communication among the active members of the network, although at present the system was not working efficiently,” she said.

Simplified certificates

Kalanga disclosed that initially, the process of reviewing products across borders was the same regardless of their value.

She cited an example that Kenya and Uganda have started issuing the simplified certificates for goods worth less than US $ 2000, thus calling on other EAC countries, particularly Tanzania to follow suit.

Improvement

“The project beneficiaries have admitted that their businesses have improved as some of them have been able to obtain passports and are currently using formal borders,” Kalanga noted.

She added: “Some women have improved their business skills and are currently packaging their products well, bookkeeping, separating capital from the profit and some have opened bank accounts for savings.”

She said the achievement was not possible before the intervention as most of the women were using informal routes which had several challenges including monetary and sexual corruption, loss of their merchandise and sometimes beating from police.

Kalanga stressed that prior to the interventions, they were trading with the aim of providing basic needs at the household level; but they are currently able to expand their business and invest in productive resources such as land.

“Some women have also reported that they have managed to buy land, renovate their houses and one woman reported that she has started building her own house.”

Source Ipp Media

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