Since 1981, the world has been observing the International day of peace. The day is dedicated to world peace, and specifically the temporary ceasefires and non-violence. The theme of the first International Day of Peace was the “Right to peace of people.” The more I think about the theme of the first observance in 1981 and the theme for 2019; I am reminded that world peace has not yet arrived on our doorstep. Is it because human nature is just drawn to conflicts, or because humanity will never co-operate or is it that we are trying to push others to change, yet we can’t change ourselves. As a social justice activist, always writing proposals for peacebuilding interventions, or convening meetings with other peace actors, trying to seek creative ways of ending wars and conflicts in our beautiful world, I am always pondering if it's naïve to believe that war might one day become a thing of the past? Well, I can only hold on to the hope that my children and their children will live in a world that is keen and deliberate on building peace. Recently, as I got thinking deeply about the concept of peace or the emergence of the term “peacebuilding”, I slipped into Immanuel Kant’s essay titled “Perpetual Peace”, which delved into the Economic Peace theory. Kant argues that there are two basic ways in which economics may contribute to international peace. First, increasing international interdependence through trade and finance raises the potential costs of war...

Burundi MPs unanimously voted on Thursday, September 19, 2019, the bill ratifying the Republic of Burundi’s agreement to create the Tripartite Zone of Free Trade Agreement (ZLET) between the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). The Minister of Trade, Industry and Tourism, Jean-Marie Niyokindi, explained the reasons for this free trade area before the MPs. Niyokindi said that this free trade area is aimed at developing and proposes to create inter-regional cooperation between the three regional communities based on three pillars, namely market integration, industrial development, and infrastructure development. This agreement will allow Burundi to have access to the market of the 26 countries of the tripartite region and to have a legal basis for continuing negotiations and seeking funding for projects and tripartite programs of interest, he added. Burundi MPs also analyzed and adopted unanimously the draft law by the Republic of Burundi the amended Article 24, paragraph 2 of the Protocol establishing the Customs Union of the East African Community. This paragraph states that the committee shall be composed of nine qualified and competent members in the areas of trade, customs, and law. The wording of this paragraph establishing the Customs Union of the EAC is such that the Trade Remedies Committee is restricted and closed. In addition, it does not allow a new country that joins this community to be represented in this body. This means, according to Minister Niyokindi, that the Appeals Committee...

The government now wants to harmonise the East Africa Community (EAC) customs regulations with those of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) so as to eliminate non-tariff barriers. The Minister for Works, Transport and Communication engineer Isack Kamwelwe said over the weekend when opening the Tanzania Truck Owners Association (TATOA) annual general meeting held in Dar es Salaam. He said the move further aimed at eliminating other challenges including vehicle weight control act and its regulation that initially mentioned as one of the big challenge. Furthermore, the move will attract more volume of tonnages and in so doing increase more revenues to the nation. Kamwelwe said upon completion it will enable smooth facilitation of transporters from the country to the SADC region which has a huge potential market. “Harmonization of EAC laws to cope with those in SADC was also a topic in our recently SADC meeting held in Dar es Salaam. We are on the process of ensuring the law and regulation governing trade in the EAC are harmonized to facilitate smooth trade in the region,”he said. He however reaffirmed the government's commitment to continue collaborating with transporters reminding them to be abiding by-laws to avoid delays and unnecessary disturbances. In another development, Kamwelwe said the government has set fund to build    bigger tanks that can store fuels in bulky to reduce time ship docking to offload fuel and increase the capacity to store tonnage of fuels He said the process moves concurrently with expansion of depth of...

NAIROBI, Sept. 23 (Xinhua) -- A key Kenyan dry port which was expanded using Chinese funding is boosting the east African nation's international trade, a port official said. Kenya Ports Authority (KPA), which owns the Nairobi Inland Container Depot (ICD), said that the dry port has enabled bulk cargo from the port of Mombasa to be transported efficiently through the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) to the hinterland. With Chinese funding, the dry port has expanded the container traffic of the ICD to reduce congestion at the port of Mombasa, ICD principal operations officer Nicholas Tendwa told Xinhua in a recent interview. The freight lines of the 472 km Mombasa to Nairobi SGR project terminates at the ICD and has modern equipment from China that has improved the efficiency of the operations of the facility. The dry port was established in 1984 in Nairobi as the key destination of most imported goods and its role was enhanced in May 2017 after the completion of the SGR in order to reduce congestion at the port of Mombasa and bring freight services closer to clients. The state-of-the-art inland cargo handling facility that was upgraded by China Communications Construction Company (CCCC) was expected to decongest the port of Mombasa while lowering the cost of transporting goods. Tendwa noted that international traders now prefer to collect their cargo from the inland dry port rather than from the Mombasa seaport. Tendwa revealed that the inland port is also an ideal pickup point for transit goods headed...

Despite the current pessimism surrounding the future of Kenya Airways, the International Air Transport Association forecasts more than double growth for the country’s air transport sector in the next 20 years. According to IATA, the sector will grow by 249 percent over the period if the current trends are maintained, contributing $11.3 billion annually to Kenya’s GDP and supporting an estimated 859,000 jobs by 2037. BUSY ROUTE The findings were made in the Value of Aviation Report for Kenya that was launched during IATA’s Regional Aviation Forum hosted by Kenya Airways on September 17. The report looked at the total contribution of jobs and spending generated by airlines and their supply chain; trade and tourism flows; investments by users of all airlines serving a particular country as well as the city pair connections that make these flows possible. According to IATA, the air transport sector contributed $3.2 billion to the economy, amounting to 4.6 percent of the country’s GDP in 2017. Source: The East African

Nairobi. The World Bank’s Logistics Performance Survey of 2018, ranked Tanzania at 67 globally, a point behind Ivory Coast, which was ranked position 66 in the process highlighting the challenges in the logistics supply chain. The index further placed South Africa, Kenya, Rwanda and Ivory Coast as the top 4 best-performing countries in Africa, while Somalia, Sierra Leone, Eritrea, and Zimbabwe took the bottom four positions. In the wake of this, today September 23, in Nairobi,  Africa Logistics Properties (ALP), a  modern warehousing solutions company hosted a supply chain networking event to celebrate its second anniversary since the completion of  ALP North at Tatu City’s Industrial Park. Speaking at the event, Africa Logistics Properties CEO Richard Hough said since setting up operations in Kenya, they have noticed various challenges in East Africa’s Supply Chain ecosystem. “We are delighted to have our first supply chain breakfast event as a way of creating a dialogue to solve some of the key challenges many business’s experiences within the Supply Chain ecosystem as well as align key international best practices that are relevant and can be applicable to the East African Region,” said Mr. Hough He further added, “With ALP logistics centres we are able to provide a key part of the solution and improve distribution in East Africa by streamlining the supply chain and logistics processes. Through eliminating shipping and transportation challenges, establishing better ways of storing goods and the effective use of technology.” Africa Logistics Properties’s flagship project 'ALP Nairobi North’ is...

Despite the current pessimism surrounding the future of Kenya Airways, the International Air Transport Association forecasts more than double growth for the country’s air transport sector in the next 20 years. According to IATA, the sector will grow by 249 per cent over the period if the current trends are maintained, contributing $11.3 billion annually to Kenya’s GDP and supporting an estimated 859,000 jobs by 2037. BUSY ROUTE The findings were made in the Value of Aviation Report for Kenya that was launched during IATA’s Regional Aviation Forum hosted by Kenya Airways on September 17. The report looked at the total contribution of jobs and spending generated by airlines and their supply chain; trade and tourism flows; investments by users of all airlines serving a particular country as well as the city pair connections that make these flows possible. According to IATA, the air transport sector contributed $3.2 billion to the economy, amounting to 4.6 per cent of the country’s GDP in 2017. Kenya received 4.8 million foreign passengers in 2017, which supported 410,000 jobs. About $0.9 billion was spent directly by passengers, which supported 15,000 jobs. Another $0.6 billion was spent on the industry’s supply chain, supporting 96,000 jobs. Tourists who arrived by air spent $1.6 billion, supporting 257,000 jobs in the hospitality sector. According to the report, Africa remains the biggest source of air passengers to Kenya, contributing 3.1 million passengers or 70 per cent of total visitors in 2017. Europe came next with 585,000 passengers followed by Asia-Pacific 284,000,...

Presidents Uhuru Kenyatta and Yoweri Museveni (Uganda) have agreed to promote sustainable peace and development along the two countries’ borders, in a latest pact signed by the two East Africa states. The programme dubbed Cross-Border Sustainable Peace and Development seeks to end hostilities among the three neighbouring communities and enhance development in the region by promoting non-violent interactions and collaborations. The three communities are Turkana, Pokot and Karamojong which live along the Kenya-Uganda border. The UN-supported intervention that will be led by a ministerial committee co-chaired by Kenya and Uganda will be implemented in the region to reduce tensions resulting from access to shared resources such as water and pasture. Speaking during the launch ceremony in Moroto town, President Kenyatta welcomed the agreement saying it will help spur development in the region which has for many years suffered unnecessary communal conflicts. “This programme, in cooperation with the UN, is a programme that will help all of us to ensure that we have peace, our people live together and also to enable us develop,” the President said. He said the peace and development programme will assist in transforming the border region from a conflict zone to an area of progress, development and wealth. The President noted that it is through wealth creation as envisioned in the signed peace and development agreement that the poverty that plague the region can be fought successfully. “Peace is the foundation of all that is good. Where there’s no peace, no development, there’s no wealth that...

South Sudan on Friday signed a framework agreement with Trade Mark East Africa (TMA), a regional trade facilitating body, to ease movement of humanitarian cargo and relief supplies in the country. Olympio Attipoe, head of the National Revenue Authority (NRA), lauded the memorandum of understanding reached between the two parties that will include setting up of the digitized regional electronic cargo tracking system and trade information portals to help improve revenue collection. "The MoU being signed today is very significant and timely because of the current macro-economic realities in the country and the government's quest to diversify revenue base from overreliance on oil revenue to non-oil revenue," he told journalists in Juba. He said that the support from Trade Mark East Africa and other development partners meets the general objective in chapter four of the signed revitalized peace agreement as it aims to improve on fiscal sustainability, transparency and accountability of revenue. South Sudan, a member of the East African Community that includes Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda, is already implementing the non-oil revenue mobilization and accountability project funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB) aimed at enhancing non-oil revenue administration. "The MoU will shape the present and future relationship between the two organizations and define how national revenue authority and Trade Mark East Africa will continue to work together on technical and infrastructure support to customs division of the national revenue authority," said Attipoe. He also noted that besides supporting capacity building of the customs department, Trade...

South Sudan inks deal with regional trade lobby to ease movement of cargo Cargo Attipoe, Head of the National Revenue Authority (NRA), lauded the memorandum of understanding reached between the two parties. Memorandum will include setting up of the digitised regional electronic cargo tracking system and trade information portals to help improve revenue collection. “The MoU being signed today is very significant and timely because of the current macro-economic realities in the country. “Also the government’s quest to diversify revenue base from overreliance on oil revenue to non-oil revenue,” he told journalists in Juba. He said that the support from Trade Mark East Africa and other development partners meets the general objective in chapter four of the signed revitalised peace agreement as it aims to improve on fiscal sustainability, transparency and accountability of revenue. South Sudan, is a member of the East African Community which includes Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda. South Sudan is already implementing the non-oil revenue mobilisation and accountability project funded by the African Development Bank (AfDB) aimed at enhancing non-oil revenue administration. “The MoU will shape the present and future relationship between the two organisations and define how national revenue authority and Trade Mark East Africa. The authority will continue to work together on technical and infrastructure support to customs division of the national revenue authority,” said Attipoe. He also noted that besides supporting capacity building of the customs department, Trade Mark East Africa is also facilitating the construction of the Nimule border parking yard near...