TradeMark East Africa has been supporting the elimination of Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) to trade in the East African Community (EAC). NTBs arise when rules or regulations (non-tariff measures) are poorly designed and/or poorly implemented.

NTBs can be intentional, for example, protectionist measures, or unintentional, for example well-intended but poorly applied food safety regulations. NTBs present a serious challenge to trade with an EAC wide cost estimate of NTBs (2010) being approximately US$490 million.

This formative evaluation gauges progress of TMEA’s NTB projects (5 projects at the country level and 1 project at the regional level) in reducing the time taken and costs involved in trading along the key corridors in East Africa. It follows the 5 OECD-DAC evaluation criteria of relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability and highlights key successes, failures, challenges and lessons learnt since the launch of TMEA’s NTB projects in 2011. This report aims to help inform the design of Phase 2 of TMEA interventions.

The evaluation comprised a detailed desk review of quantitative and qualitative data (see Annex A for documents reviewed) and conducting semi-structured interviews and Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) across all 5 EAC countries. The table summarizes the findings of the formative evaluation overall, as well as for each NTB project. Confidence levels are ‘high’ for the criteria of relevance and sustainability, and ‘medium’ for the criteria of effectiveness, efficiency and impact, based on the available evidence for each criteria.

Overall, the NTB projects are well aligned with EAC and most national priorities; a significant number of NTBs have been identified and removed, though of varying importance; and a number have been reinstated illustrating the importance of adopting a more politically informed approach. There have been reductions in both time taken and costs involved in trading, though gains cannot be attributed to the NTB projects and there have been challenges with the NTB projects reaching a large number of beneficiaries. The NMCs have largely been well integrated into existing institutional structures though rely heavily upon TMEA support and so sustainability remains a key challenge. Overall the projects would benefit from adopting more of a strategic focus on the most problematic NTBs and facilitating locally led change processes for their permanent removal.

Detailed recommendations are set out in Chapter 4 and a summary of key recommendations and relevant action points is provided at the end of this executive summary. These include, inter alia, accelerating and augmenting awareness raising activities to reach more beneficiaries; supporting studies to build the evidence base for NTB specific costs and benefits and assessing the impact on gender; strengthening the ability and willingness of stakeholders to strategically Prioritize removal of certain NTBs; linking regional and national online reporting systems; and promoting lesson sharing across the region.

Summary of Key Project Recommendations and Action Points

Recommendation 1: Accelerate and augment awareness raising activities. More primary beneficiaries need to be informed and reached, through utilizing far reaching communications channels.

Recommendation 2: Strategically prioritise removal of certain NTBs. Political economy determinants of NTBs need to be better understood. Both within and outside of NMCs, adopt a politically informed, problem focused approach to prioritizing the removal of NTBs.

Recommendation 3: Support studies to build the evidence base of NTBs. More evidence is needed on the costs of certain NTBs, as well as gender disaggregated data. This will enable more rigorous impact analysis to be undertaken and gender to be more appropriately integrated within projects.

Recommendation 4: Link regional and national level online reporting systems. Continue to support real-time monitoring of NTBs, improving complaints anonymity and strengthening feedback loops. Incorporating guidance on how to report NTBs in documents already utilised by beneficiaries.

Recommendation 5: Promote lesson sharing. Swap lessons learnt between countries on what works and doesn’t work. Replicate where possible and explore collaboration with other on-going initiatives.

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Advancing Trade, Improving Economies

Trade and Markets East Africa (TMEA) is a US$ 560 million multi-donor funded ‘aid for trade’ agency established as a company limited by Guarantee, to support the growth of trade – both regional and international – in East Africa. Established in 2010, TMEA is focused on ensuring gains from trade result in tangible gains for East Africans, in line with the EAC’s Development Strategy.

Theory of Change

TMEA’s work is underpinned by interrelated propositions that guide what we and our partners do. In turn, these propositions are strengthened by knowledge, assumptions, beliefs and hypothesis about how and why actions are expected to trigger intended changes. While propositions do not predict change, they are ‘theories’ of change. At the higher end of the ‘Theory of Change (TOC)’, in the proposition that three key ‘trade competitiveness’ elements contribute to increasing trade.

These elements, which are TMEA’s current strategic objectives are: increased access to physical markets; an enhanced trade environment and improved business competitiveness through working with the private sector.

Evaluation

In 2014, TMEA’s Evaluation Committee that is composed of TMEA and its development partners who have invested in its programme developed a Joint Evaluation Plan for independent formative and summative evaluations across its strategic objective areas, which will also address cross cutting issues; gender, environment and poverty reduction.

The evaluations will generate evidence and learning about what is working across TMEA – and what is not. Learnings will be used to improve our programmes so that resources are better used. TMEA will also use these evaluations to inform investors and stakeholders the achievements and hence promote accountability.

TMEA Results Framework

The results framework is a sub-set of TMEA’s overall monitoring system. It is structured around the objectives and outcomes in the ‘Theory of Change’, or strategy and gives specific indicators and targets.

TMEA aims to have a results framework that aligns to its strategy (theory of change) and aids clear consistent communication; and presents one holistic and clear view of selected results across TMEA.

The TMEA results framework is the accountability tool predominantly used internally to manage performance, as well as to account to investors.