Economic Partnership Agreements Implementation The EAC Perspective

The study covers challenges facing the implementation of the Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) from the East African Community perspective. Employing primary and secondary tools of data collection as well as qualitative analysis the study revealed that implementation of the EPAs within the EAC suffers from among other factors poor negotiation capacity, failure to compensate revenue loss resulting from EPAs, poor participation of non-governmental actors, uneven economic pattern, overlapping membership in Regional Economic Communities (RECs), BREXIT shock, lack of political will, unconscionable Terms in the EPAs, differences in legal systems, poor institutional capacity and differences in Partner States trade policies. The study recommends for the EAC Partner States harmonisation of legal systems and trade policies, improvement of negotiation capacity, creation of supranational institutions, full deployment of people-centred principle, alignment of constitutions and renegotiation of the already existing EPAs such as the EAC-EU EPA.