Incubator for Integration and Development in East Africa-IIDEA and cross border trade facilitation

Target Beneficiaries

• The beneficiaries of IIDEA initiative are the private sector enterprises and civil society organizations with innovative solutions.
• The intended users of the IIDEA project products and services are the citizens of East Africa

Context

Although the EAC is one of the fastest growing regional economic blocs in the world and shaping the economic, political, societal and cultural development of East Africa, many citizens are unaware of how the EAC affects their daily lives.

Women in the EAC region constitute more than 50% of the population and their role in boosting social and economic development of the region remains untapped. The majority of female cross-border traders in East Africa operate informally and are restricted in their activities, mainly due to lack of information on trade regulations, safety issues and harassment at border crossing points. Lack of information makes women cross-border traders vulnerable to harassment when crossing border points and reduces their trading power.

EAC women engaging in cross-border trade contribute to poverty reduction, improved family welfare and income, mitigate the impact of conflict and violence by creating employment, thus enhancing income and food security for their families and communities.

To address the challenges of citizens’ participation in the EAC integration process, including the challenges women cross-border traders face in the region, the GIZ programmes supporting the EAC developed the Incubator for Integration and Development in East Africa – IIDEA jointly with the EAC Secretariat and the Regional Dialogue Committee. IIDEA is a tool for engaging citizens of the EAC Partners in the implementation of the EAC Common Market Protocol and to showcase their real-life integration experiences.

IIDEA provides technical and financial support to the women cross-border traders to scale up their businesses. IIDEA projects must involve at least two countries. This enables them to effectively engage in and benefit from the cross-border trade opportunities available in the region.

This initiative brings integration closer to the lives of ordinary citizens, enabling them to see the practical results of the policies that have been adopted. It also delivers feedback to the EAC policy making bodies, helping to guide the integration process to ensure it meets the needs on the ground. In so doing, IIDEA aims to make integration something that East Africans can be proud of.

Since 2016 IIDEA provided support to projects from across East Africa. Each of these projects conducted activities in two or more Partner States and focused on issues that range from trade facilitation, technological innovation, cultural exchange, Agri-business, Tourism, gender equality, youth empowerment, cross-border mobility and many more.

Objective (s)

IIDEA’s vision is that EAC citizens influence and derive social economic benefits from regional integration.

Its objective is people and enterprises actively engage in the EAC integration

Methodological Approach

What methodology was used in order to address the initial issue and lead to a successful outcome?

• Funds for selected organisations and companies are provided.
• Organisations and enterprises that develop cross border products and services are selected through a call for proposals
• IIDEA communicates stories and results of these organizations through social media, regional and international conferences etc.
• IIDEA identifies and shares problems and challenges arising from these projects and develops recommendations for advancing regional integration
• IIDEA submits recommendations to political decision makers jointly with all partner organisations.

What was the process a participatory one?

IIDEA projects go through a participatory process right from the project inception, development of the project implementation frameworks, selection of projects for support, focus of the projects and the beneficiaries of the project to implementation and showcasing of the results. It is a people centred and market driven approach to regional integration by involving the direct participation of citizens into the integration process.

Was it gender inclusive?

The IIDEA approach is gender inclusive. Its output is to have 30,000 EAC citizens (out of which 12,000 youth and 10,000 women) who have used products and services provided by IIDEA projects
Its output indicator is to support measures on services and products offered in the field of social and economic integration implemented, 10 of which with a focus on the needs of women and youth.
IIDEA puts strong emphasis on addressing youth and women’s needs on regional integration

Results

• 37 projects supported
• Over 25,000 direct beneficiaries
• Over 54,000 thousand reached as of December2019
• 8 Projects have received additional funding and won international awards to support their projects post GIZ (CEFORD, Sauti, Creative DNA, Boutique Foundation, Bayimba Foundation, Culture and Development in East Africa, Health Healing Network Burundi, Nyakitondo Youth for Development)
• 4 projects have been integrated with the government systems and become a joint project with governments (Sauti, CEFORD and NACOFU & Rwanda Travel and Tours Association)
• 11 Regional policy recommendations were submitted to the EAC Secretary General’s Forum for consideration by the EAC Council of Ministers
• 19 events for showcasing and promotion of IIDEA projects facilitated

Impact

What has been the impact (positive/negative) of this activity?

• Over 12,000 women have taken up formal cross border businesses, overcome cross-border challenges, earn income for their families and are aware and using the regional trade information, procedures and requirements therefore, trading easily and profitably across East Africa
• The activity has allowed women cross-border traders to establish formal cross-border enterprises, thereby making them economic actors of the region contributing to EAC economic growth.
• The women cross border traders have integrated in their work plans measures to support the implementation of the EAC Gender
• Policy to ensure gender responsive and sustainable development for cross-border traders is achieved.
• Recommendations from private sector and civil society for improvement of the regional integration process are implemented at national levels and submitted to policy organ of the EAC for implementation.
• IIDEA has been acknowledged as a best practice integration initiative for citizens engagement for RECs (AU stakeholders’ private sector and civil society consultation Forum on employment and Africa and during the Africa Youth Connekt Summit in Kigali in 2018)

How has the activity contributed to border governance (as defined by the AU Border Governance Strategy)?

• Capacitated women cross-border traders through availing simplified information packages on trade, building capacity and skills to avoid harassment at border points
• Improved the management of the borders by the officials. This has created a more enabling environment for women cross-border traders at the border points in East Africa.

Success Factors

• 1. Institutional Success Factors
  Proactive umbrella women business platforms and associations of private sector and civil society organizations as well as ministries responsible for EAC Affairs. These actors promote ownership of the different activities and dissemination of information packages to the border communities.
• 2. Economic
  There is need for political will by the policy makers to open borders for women traders in East Africa. There is also the need for increased interest by women traders and stakeholders supporting women to conduct formal cross border trade in the region is commendable
• 3. Social
  There is need to scale up the showcasing of the successful impactful results from IIDEA cross border projects as an incentive to increase support and attention to gender and youth agenda in the integration process
• 4. Environmental
  There is need for proactive action and commitments by the EAC Secretariat, Partner States and the Regional Dialogue Committee to provide an enabling and facilitative atmosphere for the sustainability of the project.

Constraints

Challenges
In the course of the implementation of the IIDEA, the following challenges featured prominently:

• Inadequate funding and resource allocation for supporting the identified projects from the EAC Secretariat side. This is evidenced by low budget allocation to the line department in charge the project. At the moment there is only one Officer who handles several other programme areas thus, rendering her less effective in coordination of the gender measures identified by the cross-border projects and supporting IIDEA project implementation;
• Lack of data and or statistics from some of the EAC Partner States on gender and cross border trade to facilitate border management. These affects research efforts by these projects to improve cross border trade.
• There is lack of confidence and trust between the border officers and the cross -border women traders
• The remote location of where cross-border women traders operates (border crossing points) makes cross border trade difficult for women to venture profitably;
• All cross-border projects require a lot of funding to cover effectively 2-3 countries. The current funding is geared towards incubating these projects. Therefore, more funding is required to support the scaling up and replication of these projects to other partner states initially not covered.
• IIDEA project innovators think regionally but act nationally during the implementation of the projects hence losing the regionality of the projects messages to the beneficiaries

Sustainability

• IIDEA being a joint initiative, the institutions involved have taken on the ownership and responsibility to implement project post GIZ. The current focus for these institutions is to secure agreements and commitments for future coordination and management of IIDEA, secure additional support from development partners, women and youth organisations and potential business partners and investors.
• IIDEA project reporting is being streamlined into the EAC and Regional Dialogue Committee reporting channels to enable consistent uptake of recommendations and easy supervision of the project implementation.
• Growing interest by women, youth and stakeholders supporting the EAC integration agenda especially contributing to the implementation of the EAC Common Market Protocol in the region is commendable. This demonstrate the importance of IIDEA project in advancing regional integration from the citizens’ perspective.
• Working with umbrella women, youth, business platforms and associations promotes ownership of the different project activities and dissemination of information packages for IIDEA projects.
• What are the elements that need to be in place for the initiative to be institutionally, social, economically and environmentally sustainable?
• Institutionally, there is need for an effective management body to coordinate and manage IIDEA post GIZ. In addition, there is need to re-design IIDEA project to holistically ensure that it is sustainable, example develop a financial plan that will ensure continuity of the operations and provide after-incubation services to bridge the time until financial self-sustainment.
• Economically, there is need to review upward the financial contribution to IIDEA partners and to secure more funding for the IIDEA project to reach out many other interest groups such as the youth, women, professional associations.
• Socially, there is need for stronger emphasis on branding to increase number of applications during the call for application, provision of more coaching and mentoring (1on1) as possible to the projects, example technical industry-specific knowledge, personal development, business knowledge.
• Environmentally, there is need to collaborate with the entrepreneurship ecosystem in the EAC and provide services through experienced actors, e.g. coaching and mentoring via technical experts.

Replicability

Has this practice been replicated? In the same context? In different contexts?
No. However, it has been recognized as one of the best practice initiatives for citizens’ engagement on regional integration

What are the conditions required to replicate and adapt the initiative, at a similar scale, in another context?
IIDEA does not have a replication criteria. However, projects supported are encouraged to be replicated to the other partner states in phases upon successful implementation.

What are the conditions required to replicate the initiative at larger scale (national, regional, continental)?
At the moment there are no conditions for IIDEA to be replicated to other regional economic communities and continentally. However, IIDEA projects supported must demonstrate the possibility for replication across the EAC Partner States as a criterium in the call for proposal if it is not covering the six countries of the EAC.