This month, ALCO, the Trade Hub and USAID’s Agribusiness and Trade Promotion project will publish the second joint report on road harassment in West Africa. This unique report paints a broad picture of how the numerous checkpoints on the region’s primary trade corridors impede trade by enabling unscrupulous agents to delay trucks and extort bribes from drivers. 

 

Our most recent data collection work shows that there is still much work to be done in the area of trade and transport facilitation on the Abidjan-Lagos corridor which is by far the busiest in the region; but unfortunately, it’s probably the worst as far as harassment is concerned.

 

Checkpoints – more specifically the harassment that occurs at them – are impeding trade in West Africa. They make trade unpredictable and more costly. But they are not a new problem: In his celebrated novel Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe includes a scene at a checkpoint. Under the watchful eye of the main character, a police officer refuses to take a bribe from a taxi driver. The driver complains bitterly later to the main character – he’s convinced he’ll have to pay double when he returns. The book was published in the 1960s.

 

Much has changed since the 1960s in West Africa, but checkpoints remain a problem. On one level, Borderless is about making this problem clearer to everyone in the region, from traders who cross borders every day with the goods people need to everyday citizens just seeking to visit their relatives in the next village.

 

The essence of Borderless is collaboration. It’s a platform for cooperation and dialogue, involving public and private sector stakeholders.

 

ALCO entered into a partnership with the Trade Hub and ATP because of the immense opportunity our combined efforts offer: reaching officials with useful and compelling information on the problem of road harassment, coming together to develop the Borderless brand that is extending the vision of regional integration to millions of people.

 

Borderless is a vision of what West Africa’s business environment should look like – an environment that allows and facilitates the smooth movement of goods across the region, a seamless interconnection of trade to the benefit of the region’s millions of people. But it is also a partnership of public and private sector stakeholders to achieve that end. It was with pride that it was launched at Krake, Benin, in March 2010.

 

The partnership aspect of Borderless is exemplified in many ways, including the publication of the joint report. A partnership is critical –  no single organization, public or private, can remove the barriers to trade in West Africa. Each partner to the Borderless campaign is bringing many others, too.

 

ALCO for example has developed close ties with public officials in Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Togo, Benin, and Nigeria. These relationships enable information sharing and create opportunities for dialogue. Our concern with preventing the spread of STI/HIV/AIDS brings others into the discussion on road harassment. A broad general debate about road harassment – and what could be done to address it – is critical to eradicating it.

 

ALCO’s work involves collecting data from drivers about the harassment they experience. Borderless now serves as a common platform for raising awareness and developing the synergies necessary to reducing that harassment. 

 

ALCO’s mission also includes reducing the prevalence of STI/HIV/AIDS along the corridor. Studies show that transit drivers’ sexual behavior is one means for the spread of HIV. In effect, when drivers are delayed at checkpoints, there are more opportunities for risky sexual encounters. Working with health officials and community mobilization organizations, ALCO has conducted dozens of awareness campaigns in the communities and through the mass media reaching tens of thousands of people. 

 

When the Borderless was launched in March, it gained international attention for the simple reason that regional integration holds enormous potential for everyone in West Africa: There’s a lot at stake. It certainly is not going to happen overnight, but removing trade barriers will reduce the costs of doing business in West Africa – leading companies to expand and creating more jobs.

 

Working together to achieve this goal makes good economic sense and good health sense. Step by step, it’s happening, too, and we’re proud to be a part of it.