Without any other in the country, the freight forwarders association, also a founder member of the Private Sector Federation (PSF) brings together all licensed Clearing and Forwarding companies in the country. The nation-wide network of clearing & forwarding firms, whose obligation and objective is to embody the interests of all its members through advocacy and capacity building on both national and regional levels, was formed in 1998 and initiated by the Ministry of Finance with a keen interest in the progress of the clearing and forwarding industry in Rwanda and the East African region at large.
Prior to the establishment of RWAFFA, the clearing and forwarding industry in Rwanda was very fragile: worked without defined and professional procedures which eventually led to poor and inefficient practices within the industry. The Ministry of Finance saw it worthwhile to establish a body through which strategies would be laid to bring about best practices within the C&F industry in Rwanda. It is for this major reason that RWAFFA was created.
RWAFFA comes in handy with a rationale to act as an umbrella for all C&F firms in the country, to monitor and evaluate their latent performance but above all develop capacity building mechanisms and support systems that would promote sustainable development of the industry to cope with the fast-moving economic growth rate and business standards in the region and afar.
2 decades down the road, RWAFFA, also a leading member of the EAC’s freight forwarders’ body-Federation of East Africa Freight Forwarders Association (FEAFFA), has kept truck to guarantee the success of its vision, mission, and objectives by ensuring that checks and balances through self-regulation, promotion, and adaptation of best practices are upheld by all its members.
RWAFFA links C&F firms and other stakeholders in the logistics supply chain with a focus on creating effectual Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects that result in more transparent trade and upscaling the country’s competitiveness in the region.