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This report evaluates the agriculture and forestry standards of the African Organization for Standardisation (ARSO) against the requirements of the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). It identifies strengths in ARSO's governance and traceability frameworks while highlighting critical gaps in geolocation data, forest conversion rules, and transparency that must be addressed to protect African exporters' market access to the EU.

This policy briefing examines the tropical timber trade from the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to and through Uganda into the wider East African region. It highlights the challenges of regulating a trade characterized by informal operators and middlemen, and provides recommendations for improving regional coordination, domestic regulation in Uganda, and the use of existing platforms like the ICGLR and the Albertine Rift Strategic Planning Process to promote sustainable development.

This research paper argues that African countries, particularly within the SADC region, should adopt biotechnology and genetic modification to combat food insecurity and climate-change-induced droughts. The author contends that current regulatory stances in Africa are overly influenced by external pressures from the European Union and the Cartagena Protocol, leading to 'regulatory overkill' that may conflict with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules and hinder the timely delivery of food relief.