Over the past six months Crown Agents has supported the East African Community (EAC) in its move towards a common market through the preparation of a Community-wide Customs Strategy and the development of a harmonised Customs Training Curriculum and Strategy. Both projects were funded by the African Development Bank.
These projects sought to address the existing operational and administrative capacities of the five customs services of the EAC Partner States (Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda). Crown Agents helped the national customs services create the requisite roadmap to guide their implementation of capacity strengthening initiatives, aligned with international best practice. This will better enable the EAC Partner States to effectively apply the rules of the EAC Customs Union and Common Market. Importantly, throughout the work Crown Agents had to be aware of the main political and legal challenges of the region.
Our work was greatly assisted by the openness of the Governments of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda, in their willingness to provide access to relevant information and to discuss preliminary concepts, findings and analyses, both in their national capitals and through their EAC delegations in Arusha.