Despite the adoption, on 15 September 2021, of an operational procedure manual for joint border operations, the establishment of a Joint (bilateral) Border Post Committee to facilitate the coordination of operations between the border agencies of Kenya and Ethiopia and the launch of a community outreach program to promote trade of local communities at the border, the Moyale One Stop Border Post (OSBP) still suffers from unharmonised procedures and remains largely underutilised. According to a recent article published on Business Daily, rather than facilitating trade, the facility has turned with time into an impediment to the movement of people, preventing the two countries to reap the socio-economic benefits that the OSBP was supposed to deliver in terms of integration of their economies and of the communities living in proximity of the border post.

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On 6 to 7 April 2022, the Horn of Africa Initiative (HoAI) Secretariat, together with the African Development Bank, the World Bank, the EU Commission, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and delegations of officials from the Ministries of Trade, Finance, Transport and of the revenue/customs authorities of Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Djibouti, met in Nairobi in a Trade Workshop to elaborate a consolidated matrix identifying priority actions that HoAI countries governments should pursue in the short and medium term in order to facilitate trade and increase regional integration in the Horn.

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