Traditional African border crossings required trucks to stop on both sides of the frontier, presenting documents to each country's customs, immigration, and standards agencies separately. At busy crossings like Beit Bridge between South Africa and Zimbabwe, this process routinely took three to five days and cost transporters $300 to $500 in direct costs and lost time. One-Stop Border Posts consolidate both countries' formalities on one side of the border, with joint control by both nations' agencies in a shared facility. The Malaba OSBP between Kenya and Uganda, processing over 800 trucks per day, cut average crossing time from three days to under 12 hours for compliant consignments.
Scale and Next Steps
Twenty-two operational OSBPs are processing over 15 million truck crossings annually across Africa. The Chirundu OSBP (Zambia-Zimbabwe) and the Kasumbalesa OSBP (DRC-Zambia) have delivered similar results. African Union targets call for OSBPs at all major corridor crossings by 2028. Ongoing challenges include harmonising IT systems between neighbouring customs agencies and managing peak-period congestion. Freight operators can access a full OSBP directory and transit time data on intra-africa.com.
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