One-stop border posts in East Africa: state encounters of the fourth kind

Abstract

Across Africa, One-Stop Border Posts are being rolled out as part of a continental/ regional integration agenda that seeks to facilitate the movement of people and goods. This article focuses on four OSBPs in East Africa and addresses the question, firstly, of how far they make a break with entrenched operational patterns within government bureaucracies, and secondly whether they represent a distinct type of border management regime? The article finds that while there has been progress on data sharing in Customs, the construction and management of OSBPs reflects the persistence of distinct institutional cultures within each country. Moreover, working practices involve practical workarounds which belie notions of a paperless border. Secondly, the article finds that OSBPs are unlike other border crossings and share some features with airports and seaports in that they have been designed to handle both cargo and people. But they differ in that they are not heavily securitized and represent co-produced spaces of interaction in which transporters and members of the surrounding community have helped to shape the organizational patterns. The outcomes fuse an official ideology of service, everyday bureaucratic practice and local understandings of ownership.

Corruption, gender, and small‐scale cross‐border trade in East Africa: A review

“…OSBP's activities do not change the need to go through the different processes but rather co‐locate the agencies in an attempt to facilitate co‐operation. The OSBP can take many forms globally, but in East Africa it typically involves juxtaposed facilities that house personnel from different agencies in one space (Nugent & Soi, 2020). While legislation setting up the OSBP in the East Africa Community does not explicitly mention reducing corruption as an aim, the reduction of transactions and the open design of the OSBP are expected to reduce corruption levels as well as speed up transactions.…”

“…Given that these OSBPs have been around for some time, a number of studies have explored their impacts, including those on wait times and corruption (Nugent & Soi, 2020; Siu, 2019; TMEA, 2017; Tyson, 2018). Overall, this research suggests some substantial reduction in time saved crossing the formal border (Siu, 2020; TMEA, 2017, 2019; Tyson, 2018).…”

“…Traders viewed the changes positively, although low skill workers suggested a reduction of jobs involving manual transportation and handling of goods (Tyson, 2018). Nugent and Soi (2020) suggest that the customs officials at the OSBP in Busia are aware of the need to lure more people through their formal processes competing with informal routes. Siu (2020) finds that in Busia and Malaba this does not appear to be happening; according to her survey data, many traders were reluctant to shift borders and the overall impact of OSBP on formalization is ambiguous, suggesting that other interventions may be necessary to encourage more use of formal borders.…”

“…One of the main efforts since the 1990s to streamline and simplify trade regimes and processes involves the One Stop Border Post (OSBP), whose reform efforts are heavily supported by donor funds (Nugent & Soi, 2020). OSBP's activities do not change the need to go through the different processes but rather co‐locate the agencies in an attempt to facilitate co‐operation.…”

“…Some argue that agencies at the border posts still need to do more to harmonize inspection processes, simplify the various documents and forms required to cross, and create more locations to obtain EAC‐related information (Muluvi et al, 2016; Parshotam & Balongo, 2020). However, efforts to modernize the processes by which these border posts function have proved a challenge (Nugent & Soi, 2020). For example, electronic data has not replaced older manual practices, but has rather added another layer of complexity in some cases (Nugent & Soi, 2020).…”