Context: The Republic of Rwanda acceded to the EAC Treaty on 18th June 2007 and became full Members of the Community with effect from 1st July 2007. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is a central engine to driving Rwanda’s transformation to a knowledge-based economy, a fact Rwanda has acknowledged by allocating a budget to ICT as a percentage of its GDP that is at par with OECD countries. Rwanda continues to be one of the fastest-growing African countries in ICT and there are several avenues for growth for the ICT sector from e-commerce and e-services, mobile technologies, applications development and automation to becoming a regional center for the training of top quality ICT professionals and research as a robust ICT industry can create wealth, jobs and entrepreneurs. Rwanda is the most improved economy worldwide since 2005 (World Bank Doing Business Report, 2014). The report further reflects Rwanda the 2nd easiest to do business in Africa after Mauritius. Business environment reforms focusing on trade facilitation endeavor to reduce the cost associated with importing and exporting products. Many factors affect the cost of trade, including poor infrastructure, slow and cumbersome border regulatory and operating processes and non-tariff measures. Reforms targeted to these factors vary depending on the local contexts and problems yet overall they broadly seek to achieve more efficient, transparent, predictable and rule-based import and export processes. Reforms may include new or upgraded trade-related infrastructure, such as roads, ports and border posts; reviewing and (re)drafting the policies, laws and regulations governing...

The five Partner States of the East African Community (EAC) are currently involved in activities related to the conformity of products traded within the region. The process which includes the preparation, approval and adoption of the standards related to those products is undertaken by the different national standards bodies in each one of the partner states. A common definition of a standard is a document approved by a recognized body that provides for common and repeated use rules, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes and production methods, for which compliance may or may not be mandatory. Standards play an important role in regional integration. “Standards are vital to integration,” says José Maciel, Director of Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) and Standards at TradeMark Africa (TMA). “In addition to safeguarding the health and safety of the consumers and the environment, standards can cut the cost and time of doing business by huge amounts. In that sense, they are central to the future wealth of the EAC.” All across the five-nation regional economic bloc, TMA is helping national partners harmonize the standards of the most commonly traded goods in the region so that they can cross borders unimpeded by questions about their authenticity or reliability or origin. These include some of the most-traded goods in the EAC such as tea, coffee, iron, petroleum and edible fats and oils. TMA is assisting the EAC national bureaus of standards, the private sector and the EAC Secretariat on two levels: national and regional. At the...