This paper quantifies the gains that landlocked, transit developing countries and small states have already reaped from trade-facilitation reforms, using East Africa as a real-time laboratory. Blending a newly assembled panel of shipment-level data (2010–2023) with difference-in-differences and gravity estimators, we find that the phased roll-out of three regionally coordinated measures—Kenya’s iCMS, Uganda’s electronic single window, and the Northern Corridor’s Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking System (RECTS)—has generated cumulative, conservatively estimated welfare gains of USD 1.9 billion for the five East African Community members.

Key results:

Transit time from Mombasa to Kampala fell from 21 to 4–5 days, cutting trade costs by an average of 10% for the landlocked economies; clearance time at Nairobi’s Inland Container Depot dropped from 12 to 4 days; and monthly trade values rose 15% among firms using the new systems.

Elasticity estimates:

Each 1% improvement in the composite trade-facilitation index is associated with a 0.07% rise in exports and a 0.09% rise in imports, after controlling for tariffs and infrastructure quality.

Distribution of gains:

Gains are strongest for small, landlocked economies (Rwanda and Uganda) and for time-sensitive agricultural products, confirming that digital, procedural reforms can partially offset geographical disadvantage.

Policy simulations:

Policy simulations suggest that bringing all EAC members to the frontier of current best practice could add another USD 2.4 billion in intra-regional trade by 2030.

Conclusion:

The findings indicate that well-targeted, donor-supported facilitation programmes yield quick, measurable pay-offs and should be scaled up under AfCFTA implementation.