Occasional Paper

Uganda’s Challenges in Complying with the WTO Agreement

“As tariff and tariff-related barriers to trade continue to decline through trade liberalization and regional integration, non-policy barriers to trade like freight costs, standards and quality requirements are increasingly gaining significance. Non-Policy barriers to trade are more relevant to agricultural countries like Uganda that are focusing on export of perishables in markets. The discussion in this paper looks at Uganda’s capacity to overcome trade constraints due to the need for complying with standards by focusing on the WTO agreement on SPS and TBT issues before and after 1995. Case studies on institutions responsible for formulating and enforcement are covered in detail to unveil problems relating to mandatory standards and trade in Uganda.”