KOBERO, Burundi – Burundi, one of the world’s poorest states, has been ranked one of the world’s top 10 economic reformers in a World Bank survey that honours its drive to modernize trade and infrastructure. The award, in the bank’s yearly Ease of Doing Business report, acknowledges Burundi’s efforts to attract foreign investment by unraveling age-old procedures that snarled commerce in paperwork, queues and wasted time. “We are delighted to be among the top reformers in the world, having moved up 13 places this year on top of having moved up eight places last year,” said the country’s Second Vice President, Gervais Rufyikiri. The index, topped by Singapore for the seventh successive year, measures how countries perform on a range of indicators from the time it takes to get a building permit to how long it takes to get across borders. Time, especially in the East African region is money, and Burundi’s modernization efforts have been helped by targeted expertise from TradeMark Africa (TMA), a donor-funded organisation helping the region to grow prosperity through smoother and increased trade. Modernity gleams through the rain at Kobero, a four-hour drive from Bujumbura and Burundi’s lifeline border crossing into Tanzania and the distant port of Dar es Salaam. Or, a two-day drive for the 80-odd trucks that pass here every day from Dar es Salaam. Here, in the middle of a fairly typical African frontier crossing – tiny kiosks, a foreign exchange dealer, and truckers’ cheap hotels – is a large white prefabricated...

Few parts of the world have pioneered the cell phone with such ingenuity as East Africa. You can pay bills with it, check crop weather with it and, when you’re not checking your bank balance, talk to your auntie in Kisangani or Kigali or Kericho. But now, for the first time in East Africa, the humble cell phone is being used as a beacon to champion free, smoother and cheaper trade across the region by naming and shaming unnecessary or duplicated barriers to the free movement of goods. The short messaging system (SMS) online non-tariff barrier (NTB) reporting and monitoring mechanism, was developed by the Tanzania Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (TCCIA) to get the business community not just to grumble about NTBs but to log them, report them and get them referred to those with the power to overturn them. Such is the beauty of the system that it has been nominated for the award of Best Project of the Year by the International Chambers of Commerce and World Chambers Federation, a grouping of senior business, trade and commerce experts. “It is a great pleasure to see that the in house innovation can stretch its wings to the international community. The recognition that the NTBs SMS and online reporting and monitoring system has received through its nomination in the finals, is an evidence that what we do as a private sector in creating favorable business environment adds value to the lives of people; not only because the world...

It looks like a secret still making illegal alcohol. It’s tucked away in a hidden fold of Rwanda’s rolling hills, a long and bumpy 150km from the Rwanda capital, Kigali. A brush fire bubbles under a vat. A bewildering network of pipes channel the steam to holding vessels, where mysterious liquid condenses. The raw materials of dried leaves is stacked around the site, awaiting immersion and transformation. But the smell that comes off this apparatus isn’t the chemistry of grain meeting yeast and sugar to ferment liquor. It’s a pleasant perfume and could be the sweet smell of success for its owners, and for the Rwanda government’s drive to export high quality products. Ikirezi, a manufacturer of essential oils such as geranium and patchouli, operates the plant. And it could be one of the companies to benefit from Rwanda’s determination to set high standards that will be accepted on local and international markets. “We want to be a model of high standards,” says Rwanda Bureau of Standards (RBS) Director-General Mark Cyubahiro Bagabe. “We want to help the East African Community improve the quality of their products to access international markets.” “Rwanda wants to be the Switzerland of Africa,” explains TradeMark Africa (TMA) Country Director Mark Priestley. “To do that, you need to compete on quality, not volume, and to do that you need trust, and testing goods and applying standards is all about trust.” The government has adopted measures for a market-oriented economy supported by increases in industrial and agricultural...