IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/afrdev/v37y2025i3ne70027.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Free Movement of Persons and Cross‐Border Trade in Southern African Development Community (SADC): The Zimbabwean Example

Author

Listed:
  • Rejoice Rumbidzai Musakaruka
  • Yaya Deome Hamadjoda Lefe
  • Epo Boniface Ngah

Abstract

This study investigated the effects of the free movement of persons on cross‐border trade in the Southern African Development Community (SADC), using Zimbabwe as the case study. Adopting an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model on data from 1990 to 2021, findings reveal that (a) free movement of persons, both in terms of the SADC's protocol and the volume of the actual movement of persons, has a statistically significant short‐run negative and long‐run positive impact on cross border trade in Zimbabwe; and (b) governance quality, financial access, gross savings and net inflows of foreign direct investment have a statistically significant short‐run negative and long‐run positive influence on cross‐border trade in Zimbabwe within the SADC region. Policy‐wise, the Zimbabwean government and the SADC region should strengthen their commitment to the SADC's free movement of persons protocol and abolish regulatory and customs procedures limiting cross‐border trade.

Suggested Citation

  • Rejoice Rumbidzai Musakaruka & Yaya Deome Hamadjoda Lefe & Epo Boniface Ngah, 2025. "Free Movement of Persons and Cross‐Border Trade in Southern African Development Community (SADC): The Zimbabwean Example," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 37(3), September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:afrdev:v:37:y:2025:i:3:n:e70027
    DOI: 10.1111/1467-8268.70027
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8268.70027
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/1467-8268.70027?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:afrdev:v:37:y:2025:i:3:n:e70027. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/afdbgci.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.