Per the thread exchanged here with Lillian – where we were stirring the pot on leveraging ICT to support rural enterprise (and all SSA humanity of course) via early disaster warning systems – I figured I’d go ahead and take on African regional trade and what could be tweaked to spur ICT uptake or adoption as well as ICT skill acquisition -- the whole slew of elements that could be considered in boosting SSA regional trade.

According to a recent World Bank report, What Can Be Expected from African Regional Trade Arrangements, trade within African sub regions usually draws the following kinds of questions:

Do these countries even grow enough to eat or manufacture enough for their internal use talk less of moving it outside their borders?

What kind of commodities are they trading in – raw or manufactured goods? "Petroleum alone accounts for more than 30 per cent of this exchange, while Cotton, live animals, maize and cocoa add a further 18 per cent. To a lesser extent, fresh fish, vegetables, tea and sugar are also traded. Manufactured goods account for only about 15 per cent of such activity. These include yarn, medicines, iron and steel, chemicals and industrial machines and equipment."

Nature/stature of logistics and other enabling service -- air, sea, road transportation, regional bank networks? On regional banking service -- Stanbic bank of South Africa has since been present in most SSA countries, and following the 2004 reforms of the Central Bank of Nigeria, a lot of Nigerian commercial banks are aggressively spreading their tentacles in the West African sub-region. On the retail front, there’s Shoprite -- retail giant of South Africa, which has footprints all over SSA and recently invaded India! There’s MTN -- South African Telecom Company with extensive regional presence. On the transportation front -- Nigerian-owned SLOK airline is now the national carrier for Gambia, and for road transportation – there’s the Baz bus service of South Africa that provides tours across the entire Southern Africa sub region. And on the manufacturing front – there are too many – Timbuktu would be a good place to start tracking them. And then there’s a myriad of Enonchong-type, small but nimble, specialized service outfits operating across national borders in SSA. So it appears there are tons of indigenous regional players in the inter and intra regional manufacturing and service category that don’t seem to be accounted for in the above World Bank report. Another point to note is that the recent upsurge in inter-regional commercial activity coincides with, among other things, the telecom upsurge/ICT adoption in SSA.

As far as things that could be done to improve/encourage organic growth and progress of regional trade – I see ICT once again written all over the place!

For direct authorities like Customs &Excise and Immigrations Services: There are urgent needs for greater transparency and honest enforcement of border control policies per import activities -- import duties and tariffs, etc. Deploying ICT-enabled identification database system for immigration authorities, and ICT-enabled customs and excise export/import processing apparatus at international ports of entry – airports, seaports and land border, would all help to improve import processing turn-around time, increase efficiencies and accountability while minimizing human error.

For SSA Governments: there’s need to push more e-government initiatives, and direly needed improvements, increase to capacities and upgrade to infrastructures – road and rail networks in SSA are simply death traps! There’s also need for balanced international/inter-regional commercial regulatory policies -- which should on one hand allow reasonable degrees of freedom to SSA commercial entities seeking entry into local markets outside their own borders, while ensuring they don’t adversely impact the host country’s small and medium enterprise (SME) competitors. And on the other hand – focused nurturing programs like this and this for indigenous SMEs. Encourage favorable synergies between the incoming commercial entity and homegrown players – for instance, a retail operation like Shoprite (of South Africa) entering Malawi, may be allowed to operate on the condition that it stocks at least 40% Malawian agricultural produce or 30% Malawian manufactured electronics. According to this article, it is currently a big political flash point in India.For Individuals: live, real time informational tools such as WAMIS . Other enabling tools include early warning systems, etc.

 

The assertion that, it’s easier to buy from or sell to EU or US than other countries in the SSA region is directly connected to poor /non-existent inter-regional transport service as well as abusive border crossing practice. Traders would do anything, even resort to smuggling as often the case, to avoid land border crossings – SSA border posts are wildly flagrant orgies featuring abuse of authority, festering corruption and abuse of fellow humans by border authorities.

Trade among African countries only accounts for about 10 per cent of their total external trade. And if this penetration rate is interpreted the same way teledensity rate is interpreted in the SSA telecom context…well, go figure!