Nathan was retained to carry out the first in a series of studies undertaken by the Southern Africa Resource Center of the African Development Bank to systematically measure and monitor the efficiency of primary border posts in the southern Africa region.

The objective of this exercise was to identify check-points, understand the efficiency constraints, and propose actions the AFDB and its partners should undertake to address them. Second, the studies generated baseline data that was used to measure the impact of the Bank’s investments in the improvement of the specific border posts earmarked for Bank financing.

For this assignment, Nathan:

• Reviewed the regional economic data, data on imports and exports;
• Evaluated cargo verification and clearance procedures conducted at the border post in terms of time, cost, reliability and time variability;
• Conducted fieldwork with various key figures in customs, representatives of trade associations, and directors of other government departments that do border inspections;
• Conducted an efficiency evaluation highlighting physical and procedural bottlenecks in transport networks, freight corridors and supply chains, finds the causes of those bottlenecks, and measures their impact on logistics time, cost, reliability, and time variability.