Trade Facilitation and Capacity Building Project

The Southern African Trade Hub is one of three regional Trade Hubs for Global Competitiveness established as part of the U.S. government's Trade for African Development and Enterprise (TRADE) Initiative with the aim of helping African businesses sell more of their product on the global markets. The Hub’s foremost objective is enhancing the competitiveness of Southern African products and services, which play a key role in reducing poverty. Primarily, the Hub was created to enable African businesses to take greater advantage of opportunities provided through the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) and other global trade initiatives. It is designed to function as a central point where Southern Africans can gain access to U.S. markets through business linkages, capacity building services, and problem-solving trade facilitation. Other Trade Hubs are in Accra, Ghana, and Nairobi, Kenya.

AECOM International Development is responsible for managing the Southern Africa Trade Hub through the Trade Facilitation and Capacity Building (TFCB) Project, funded by USAID. The AECOM International Development team of experts is providing the technical leadership for the Hub’s management to ensure that the Hub continues to effectively address critical trade and investment priorities for the region. Over the past three years, the Hub has evolved to address these priorities based on a broad spectrum of issues and mandates linked to AGOA, WTO, evolving regional trade agreements, a development agenda set by the USAID Africa Bureau and RCSA, linkages with other U.S. government agencies, and an extensive set of stakeholders in the 12 countries that RCSA is currently targeting. Activities under this project are composed of four components.

• Capacity Building and Policy Reform for Competitiveness. AECOM International Development has provided technical assistance to support the implementation of the new SACU Agreement (Southern Africa Customs Union); support for US-SACU Free Trade Area negotiations; capacity building for meeting international (SPS) standards; and support for reducing anti-export bias in fiscal policies. AECOM International Development is also implementing the Trade Audits of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Free Trade Area. AECOM International Development has completed investor roadmap studies for the Investment Promotion Agencies in Swaziland and Namibia. A taskforce has recently been set up in by the cabinet in Swaziland to ensure implementation of the recommendations.
• Trade Facilitation - Customs Modernization and Transport Facilitation. This work focuses on supporting countries to adopt world-class best practice techniques in customs and transport procedures. The project responds to specific country requests and continues to support the transport corridor work. In Mozambique, the project successfully brought together the customs administration and the private sector to discuss specific customs and transport constraints. This event resulted in an action plan, which has been presented to and accepted by the Director General of Mozambique Customs. The Time Release Study was introduced to the region and has been carried out in Mozambique and Zambia, and is now under way in Malawi. The AECOM International Development team also successfully designed and implemented a Single Administrative Document (SAD) along the Trans-Kalahari Corridor route between South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia. The SAD replaced the need for 16 documents and is now being implemented throughout South Africa by the South African Revenue Service, contributing to reduced travel times, greater streamlining of business procedures, and lower costs for business along the route. The project has also completed two Trade Facilitation Country Assessments for Angola and Zambia.
• Financial Services for Trade and Competitiveness. AECOM International Development completed a study examining the access to trade finance for small and medium-sized exporters. The first component of the study was implemented in Mozambique, and involved coordinating other efforts in this area from banks, the International Finance Corporation, and other donors. Also, work to support the Women in Business Association (WIBA) in Botswana assisted in designing an implementation strategy for a micro-credit project as well as in exploring ways to strengthen the association. This strategy will improve the WIBA’s ability to attract more members, widen the scope of its activities, and strengthen its efforts to increase accountability among public sector policy makers.
• The Dialogue for Competitiveness. AECOM International Development is coordinating efforts in the other three areas and ensuring substantive transfer of project activities, findings of studies, and trade-related information to the public and government ministries. Efforts in this area include a regular series of workshops and a quarterly electronic newsletter, Inside Trade in Southern Africa (INSAT), which serves as a platform for publishing the results of studies and ensuring further outreach. The Trade Hub has produced five educational video documentaries to facilitate training workshops and outreach events, stimulate discussion share knowledge and best practices, and raise awareness and educate. These have been shown throughout the region.