What Drives Africa’s Inability to Comply with EU Standards? Insights from Africa’s Institution and Trade Facilitation Measures

Abstract

Over the years, there have been a significant number of Africa’s food exports rejected at the European Union (EU) borders due to their non-compliance with EU food safety standards. This paper, therefore, provides an in-depth investigation of the potential causes of the non-compliance of Africa’s food exports to EU food standards and the subsequent rejection of such food exports at its borders. We contribute to the literature by investigating the roles played by trade facilitation measures and institutions in food export rejections and also exclusively provide a more detailed analysis and specific evidence at the product level. Our results indicate that poor trade facilitation measures, particularly inefficient border and food logistics procedures in African countries, increase the incidence of food rejection at the EU border and add to Africa’s challenges in accessing EU markets. Thus, non-compliance with EU food safety standards can be addressed by African governments through the strengthening of their domestic institutions and trade facilitation measures, with policies that improve logistics and border procedures as well as measures that align their food standards to international ones. This will ensure an efficient food supply chain that meets international food safety standards and facilitates food trade.

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“…Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of compliance on a global scale, as evidenced by the cross-language validation of a compliance scale in 28 languages (Blackburn et al, 2022). Furthermore, the challenges and opportunities in ensuring trustworthy artificial intelligence and process mining underscore the complexities of legal compliance in a global context (Pery et al, 2021;Kareem et al, 2022) shed light on the factors driving Africa's inability to comply with EU standards, emphasizing the importance of understanding institution and trade facilitation measures (Kareem et al, 2022).…”

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“…While in some cases trade restrictions could be a policy of last resort for tempering domestic price increases, whenever possible they should be avoided. Instead, an implementation of the trade facilitation measures (Kareem et al ., 2022) and a reduction in tariff barriers for agricultural commodities, like in the case of temporarily lifted duties on imports from Moldova, should be prioritised. Once implemented, the simplified trade procedures and reduced tariffs should be made permanent to the extent possible, as this would incentivise greater investment in production for export around the world.…”

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“…Besides, the various proxies of institutions provide varying effects in the region. Kareem et al [7] probe the consequences of non-adherence to trading procedures in Africa's food exports, which have contributed to the increased incidence of food insecurity in the continent. Outcomes of the study uncover that inefficient trade procedures and inconsistent food logistics contribute to the poor performance of the continent in meeting the food demand, both from imports and exports angles.…”

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