Nairobi's informal settlements of Mathare and Kibera are set to benefit from an initiative dubbed Pamoja Dhidi ya Corona. The initiative was launched by Search For Common Ground with the support of the European Union to help marginalised communities in Kenya fight Covid-19 pandemic. At a cost of Sh66.25 million, the 15-month initiative will help the communities to fully implement government’s Covid-19 response measures by providing accurate information. By doing this, it will allow these communities to protect themselves from the virus. “This initiative is essentially about strengthening the connections between Kenyan citizens in marginalised communities and the rest of society, as well as the government, and about preserving and strengthening the social contract during the pandemic,” EU Ambassador to Kenya Simon Mordue said. He spoke at the launch on Thursday at Park Inn Hotel in Nairobi. The initiative is part of a global Team Europe – the EU and the member states - response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Ambassador Mordue noted that Team Europe is providing close to Sh40 billion in support to Kenya during the pandemic through a range of measures, and EU’s solidarity will continue beyond the immediate health crisis. Pamoja Dhidi ya Corona comes at a time when the number of infections in Kenya has crossed the 19,000 mark with close to 300,000 tests done.. As of July 30, when Kenya recorded 788 new cases, the country had confirmed 19,913 infections. The new positives were from 5,521 samples. Search For Common Ground’s Swahili Coast director Judy...

Summary The technology has the capacity to monitor and model human congestion, thereby mapping how the virus is spreading. It is not clear what the starting date would be now but Commissioner Muchanga indicated that his Department was entering into many partnerships with multiple Pan-African stakeholders to ensure that the free trade bloc gets going as early as possible. Contact monitoring can be used in tracking social behavior mobility and the movement of persons from one region to another. But in implementing such a program, organisations involved must protect the data privacy of the persons being monitored. As African airlines get back to international skies this month for the first time since March, their commitment towards minimizing the possibility of an upsurge in Covid-19 infections will be critical in jump starting the air travel business. To help manage the uncertainty among passengers about the health safety of international flights, the African Union (AU) Open Corridor Initiative is supporting a collaboration among pan-African private sector institutions to launch a Consortium to deploy and manage a digital platform that will perform bio-screening and tracing of contacts across borders. Dubbed PanaBIOS, the application, which can be accessed on the web or downloaded from Panabios.org, is already being utilized in Ghana to manage congestion in workplaces and other high-risk locations while enabling digitizing of cross—border travel health clearance to suppress disease importation and transmission. A pilot was initiated on June 1 in Ghana as part of the West African country's Trancop Initiative and then formally...

Nairobi and Kigali are set to resume international flights on 1 August, as the region begins reopening its skies in time for the end-year tourism peak season. The decision by Kenya and Rwanda to reopen their skies amidst a surge in COVID-19 cases follows similar decisions in Tanzania and South Sudan in June. Domestic flights in Kenya resumed on 15 July, a fortnight after President Uhuru Kenyatta announced the phased reopening and said the country would adopt a wait-and-see approach to any changes in the preventative measures it has instituted since March. In late July, Kenyan Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia listed 11 countries that will be allowed to originate internationally, but added this list would be reviewed daily. Of its five neighbors, Nairobi would allow flights from Uganda and Ethiopia, as well as its East African Community partner Rwanda. The exclusion of Tanzania from the list was expected, as the extent and rate of infections in the country is unknown. Tanzania stopped announcing official figures of the pandemic in April, and while reopening the country in early June, President Magufuli declared that it was coronavirus-free. Although the list also includes Uganda, President Museveni’s administration still has stringent movement restrictions. In his latest update, President Museveni said Uganda’s borders will remain closed “because there is so much chaos in some of these countries abroad.” Ethiopia’s response has been more measured, as its airline continued flying to destinations that still allowed flights. By early July, Ethiopian Airlines was flying to 40 destinations. Different arrival procedures While international...

SUMMARY The resumption of passenger flights signals a reduction on cost of freight charges resulting from additional capacity offering a relief to exporters who have had to content with high rates in the last four months. Passenger airlines, which had been grounded since March, account for 40 percent of the total export freight in the country. Freight charges have remained at a high of Sh321 a kilogramme from Sh197 in the same period in corresponding time last year. The resumption of passenger flights signals a reduction on cost of freight charges resulting from additional capacity offering a relief to exporters who have had to content with high rates in the last four months. Passenger airlines, which had been grounded since March, account for 40 percent of the total export freight in the country. Freight charges have remained at a high of Sh321 a kilogramme from Sh197 in the same period in corresponding time last year. Sanjeev Gadhia, the chief executive officer of Astral Aviation, a Nairobi-based cargo airline forecast a 20 percent cost cut. “Passenger airlines carry up to 40 percent of the total cargo in the country. The increased capacity will see the freight charges come down,” said Mr Gadhia. Exporters say the belly cargo that has been missing since the closure of the airspace in March, plays a significant role in supplementing the cargo flights, hence checking on the high cost. Kenya horticulture industry suffered one of the worst moments in its history after a number of major...

The First Berth at Lamu Port was completed last year together with a container yard with a holding capacity of over 21,000 TEUs. he government’s lock-down of the ongoing construction sites at Lamu port when the country recorded the first cases of Covid 19 has paid off after the contractor completed 2 more berths recently – five month earlier. This now brings the total number of completed berths to 3. The Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Transport (Lapsset) authority Director General Silvester Kasuku told a TV talk show this week that the authorities did not allow anyone to leave the site or gain its entry. Anyone who left for whatever reason was not accommodated back, he said. But the date of commissioning is still unknown, Kasuku said. “The first berth has been ready since last year, but the itineraries of the three Head of States involved in the project did not coincide, causing the delay in its commissioning,” Mr Kasuku was recently quoted by the press in Kenya. The First Berth at Lamu Port was completed last year together with a container yard with a holding capacity of over 21,000 TEUs. The berth was due for commissioning last year with Maersk Shipping Line having committed to call in the first vessel. This was, however, postponed and the situation has even been made complex by the Covid 19 pandemic. The other supporting infrastructure projects such as the causeway, aids to navigation, security requirements including fencing of the yard and International Ship...

In Summary On Friday, Kenya added 7 more countries to its list of countries whose passengers will be allowed into the country when international flights resume on August 1. Flights from the United States of America (except for California, Florida and Texas; United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Italy will now be allowed into the country. Apart from China and Zimbabwe, other countries allowed to operate flights to Kenya are South Korea, Japan, Canada, Ethiopia, Switzerland, Rwanda, Uganda, Namibia, and Morocco. Kenya and Tanzania have been urged to consider an East African Community (EAC) coordinated approach after the two countries clashed over the ‘safe flights’ list. The East African Business Council (EABC) said the two nations should prioritize decisions that promote intra-EAC trade and revive the tourism and hospitality sector heavily hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. “The East African Business Council congratulates Kenya and Rwanda as they resume international flights today, 1st August 2020. Tanzania resumed international flights on the 18th of May 2020. These are important steps towards the recovery of the aviation and tourism sectors, however, the differences emerging in regional air transport services among some partner states are set to adversely affect the rebound of business in the region,” Dr. Peter Mathuki, the EABC Executive Director /Chief Executive Officer said. According to him, intra EAC trade stood at $5.98 billion (Ksh. 644billion) two years ago but with the unprecedented impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the economy, regional trade is expected to decline by 50 percent this...

The Common Market for East and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) on 29th July, 2020 adopted harmonised Tripartite Guidelines on Trade and Transport Facilitation Guidelines for Safe, Efficient and Cost-Effective Movement of Goods and Services during the COVID-19 Pandemic. The Guidelines are aimed at containing the spread of COVID-19 whilst facilitating trade and transport of goods and services across the Tripartite area during the COVID-19 pandemic. In his remarks at the opening of the Tripartite Council of Ministers meeting, Honourable Mr Tarek Shalaby, Assistant Minister for Foreign Trade, Agreements and International Relations of the Arab Republic of Egypt, representing the Chairperson of the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Council of Ministers said the harmonisation of guidelines on Trade and Transport Facilitation presents an opportunity towards the realisation of the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) which was signed by the Tripartite Heads of State and Government in June, 2015. The Minister called for collective action to guarantee movement of goods and services to promote intra-regional trade, while reducing the cost of goods and services within the tripartite area. He added that the attainment of tripartite and continental integration can only be realised with the harmonisation of regional initiatives and overcoming the challenges of overlaps and multiple membership of COMESA, EAC and SADC. On her part, the Chairperson of the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Task Force, the Executive Secretary of SADC, Her Excellency Dr Stergomena Lawrence Tax, highlighted that the overlapping nature of membership and sharing of traffic...

The African shipping and maritime sectors have largely remained undeveloped compared to the rest of the world, despite hosting mineral rich-countries that the industrialized world depends on to run its industries. The primary reason that Africa has been in  the spotlight in matters of shipping is due to piracy historically reported on the Somalian and West African coastlines. But with a rapidly increasing population and a growing consumer class, the demand for imported goods will soar in African nations, requiring improvements in containerized cargo to allow efficiency in supply chains and reduction in import costs. Africa has 16 landlocked countries, which are home to 30 percent of the continent’s 1.3 billion people. All of these landlocked nations are net importers and thus dependent on their neighbors’ access to the sea. This is the backdrop for Africa’s growing trade relationship with China, as well as China’s dominance in projects to enhance Africa’s port infrastructure. Mombasa Port, which is Eastern and Central Africa’s regional hub, has registered significant progress in modernization and competitiveness. The $3 billion Kenya Ports Authority investment program envisages that Mombasa Port will have an annual capacity to handle 110 million tonnes of cargo by 2040. In 2018, a Chinese contractor embarked on extending the new SGR (Standard Gauge Railway) railway to cover 10 berths at Mombasa Port, and a cargo train is already ferrying goods to an inland container depot in Nairobi. Additionally, after completion of a second container terminal with a capacity of 550,000 TEU, construction of...

Thando Mnkandhla Windhoek – The Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) is integrating electronic surveillance systems that will not only movement of haulage trucks, but will also track drivers’ health and safety. The integrated surveillance system is part of a package of Guidelines for Safe, Efficient and Cost Effective Movement of Goods and Services during the COVID -19 pandemic as adopted by the Tripartite Council of Ministers on July 29. The TFTA brings together the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the East African Community (EAC), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Among other matters the ministers would like harmonised are movement of goods – particularly agricultural inputs, food, fuel, and medicines and medical equipment - between countries subject to health and safety regulations. On “Application of Customs Laws and Interpretation”, customs administrations were urged to waive fees, storage and handling charges, and warehouse rent on essential goods during the COVID-19 pandemic. The harmonised regulations establish standard operating procedures for management and monitoring of cross border road transport at designated points of entry and COVID-19 checkpoints, with the objective of facilitating safe movements of passengers and goods. The standard operating procedures cover testing, quarantining, truck stops, catering and sanitation. Representing the Chairperson of the Tripartite Council of Ministers, Egypt’s Assistant Minister of Foreign Trade, Agreements and International Relations, Tarek Shalaby, said the guidelines on trade and transport facilitation presented an opportunity for full implementation of free trade as envisaged when Heads of State and Government signed up for the TFTA...

THE Tripartite Task Force of the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East Africa Community and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is in the process of developing a common guideline that would ease cross border movement of goods, services and their people. The guidelines are to be used during and beyond Covid-19 crisis, to address any future health emergencies that might arise for transportation and trade facilitation. In the course, the Regional Economic Communities (REC) has developed an integrated electronic monitoring and surveillance system in a grand move to facilitate the effectiveness of the tripartite guidelines on facilitation of cross-border movement of goods and transport. These were unveiled by the Chairperson of the COMESA-EAC-SADC Tripartite Task Force, Dr Stergomena Tax, who is also SADC Executive Secretary, while gracing the extraordinary virtual meeting of the tripartite council of ministers. According to her, it was encouraging to note that the RECs guidelines have contributed to improving trade and transport facilitation, and that the need to have harmonised guidelines at the tripartite level, while taking into accounts the importance of tripartite crossborder movement of goods, services and persons to facilitate trade and other socio-economic activities. "With the overlap of RECs membership and the sharing of traffic between and among RECs, the need for harmonised tripartite trade and transport facilitation guidelines for the movement of persons, goods and services across the tripartite region during the Covid-19 pandemic has become more apparent and urgent," she said. Expounding, she said the guidelines are...