Growing up in Nyagatare, Rwanda, Rosette Cyarikora's childhood memories are replete with the sight of her mother skilfully producing ghee. This led her to recognise its potential for creating a sustainable family income. When she came of age, Rosette along with her friends, began packaging and selling ghee across the border in Uganda. Despite their entrepreneurial spirit, they faced legal challenges and confiscations of their merchandise, due to operating across the border without the requisite authorisation. However, their determination persisted. Their perseverance paid off when in 2016, they were introduced to the "Making Trade Work for Women" programme, launched by Pro-Femmes/Twese Hamwe, TradeMark Africa, and funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC). This initiative, sought to empower women entrepreneurs and foster an inclusive business environment. As part of the programme, Rosette and 19 other women formed the Girubuzima Cooperative. With the programme’s support, they expanded their product line to include ghee, buttermilk, and skin cream. Starting with just a litre of milk each and sheer determination, the cooperative thrived and by 2019, they were processing over 300 litres of milk weekly and selling fresh milk and dairy products in a bustling shop near a busy bus terminal. Thanks to the programme’s market linkages, they now export their products to Uganda, and were recently recognised and awarded a trophy for their innovation in dairy products, packaged in attractive, recyclable containers. Looking to the future, the women of Girubuzima are saving funds to purchase land and construct a factory, aiming to expand their...

The IOTA Foundation has stated that the initial stage of its cooperation with an East African business to facilitate paperless trading in the area has been completed successfully. The Foundation partnered with TradeMark Africa on the initiative, which aimed to modernize the continent’s supply chain’s inefficient and expensive paper-based procedures. This technique was substituted by a more effective digital approach system on the basis of IOTA’s ledger data platform, the Tangle. The Foundation collaborated with the Nairobi, Kenya-headquartered business to develop an interconnectivity technological framework that allows East African companies to “interact in a clear, safe, and immediate manner, both between themselves and with global associates.” TradeMark Africa (TMA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting regional commercial development. According to their calculations, a single transaction in Africa necessitates the completion of 96 paper based documents on average. The situation is far worse for exporters. They misplace papers because they have to distribute them physically, which contributes to inefficiencies, which are usually always pricey. Along with TMA, the IOTA Foundation is working to alter this. The Trade Logistics Information Pipeline (TLIP), which centered on the Kenyan flower business, was their initial effort. It’s among Kenya’s most important industries, and is also one of Africa’s largest. Kenya exports around 180,000 tonnes of flowers each year, or nearly seven million stems each day. Because this sort of product is very perishable, having an effective and robust distribution chain is important. This is something that TLIP has already been giving to farmers and exporters. “In...

At the onset of COVID-19, the Government of Somaliland issued directives to manage the spread of the virus. On top of complete lockdowns, curfews, and closing of borders, public health measures were enforced in most public places. Although vital in curbing the spread of the virus, these measures significantly impacted on trade particularly micro and small traders, and informal traders. The Safe Trade Zone intervention under the safe trade emergency facility endeavoured to support authorities to develop and implement a protocol that could be used in the establishment and management of safe market- places.  In partnership with AMREF Health Africa, TMA developed the Safe Trade Zone Protocol that was rolled out across selected markets in East Africa and the Horn of Africa. In Somaliland, the Tog Wajaale border was selected because of its strategic linkage to the Berbera corridor. It was anticipated that this intervention would allow traders business continuity; while giving the authorities confidence that traders and market users are safe and protected. The Tog Wajaale Safe Trade Zone market is located on the border of Somaliland and Ethiopia. 92.8KM West of Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland. It is the main route that connects Somaliland and Ethiopia known as Berbera Corridor. It’s a sizable city with an estimated population of about 70,450 inhabitants. In place of an old market lacking any infrastructure, a new market was built in an area of 1,800- metre square. It contains 196 stalls designed to provide for social distancing of 2.5 metres and in...

The route is simply called Route 200. It’s part of the greater Berbera Corridor starting from Berbera Port all the way to Ethiopia at Tog Wajaale. With over US$16,600,425 funding from United Kingdom’ s Agency for International Development channelled through TradeMark Africa (TMA); Somaliland’s Ministry of Transport and Roads Development is representing the government in the effort of upgrading the 22.5km Hargeisa bypass into a two lanes single carriage way along the Berbera corridor around the Somaliland’s capital of Hargeisa. This project will reduce travel time and overall transport cost for the transport operators, increase volume of trade within Somaliland and neighbouring Ethiopia and reduce poverty and improve the people’s livelihood. The Hargeisa bypass is part of a three-component  three-year programme by the United Kingdom  known as “Unlocking Prosperity in the Horn of  Africa”. The labour force is about 200. Of that there are fifteen women working on the project. Here are some of their stories.  Community buy-in [caption id="attachment_63032" align="alignleft" width="225"] Hebaq Hassan, Sociologist Assistant[/caption] I was keen to learn what the local community felt about the road; and had an animated chat with Hebaq Hassan, who is not only employed at the site, but is a resident of Hargeisa. I posed: Is the community happy with the bypass upgrade? What do the old men who were born, lived, herded goats, had their social gathering like weddings feel about this dusty road cutting into their land, into their heart? What do the womenfolk feel? What do they want? “Because...

TradeMark Africa with project implementing partner Horn of Africa Voluntary Youth Committee (HAVOYOCO), project donors European Union, IGAD and Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office launched a modern market project on the Ethiopia and Somaliland border under the Safe Trade Zones. This market for informal women traders in Ethiopia’s border is being constructed with key health provisions and features to ensure enhanced safe trading and hygiene in light of the prevailing COVID-19 pandemic. Safe Trade Zones are under the Safe Trade Emergency Facility, a US$31 million intervention by TradeMark Africa in the East, Horn and Southern Africa region in the wake of the debilitating effects of COVID-19 on trade. Similar markets are being implemented in Busia Kenya, Nimule in South Sudan and Rusizi in Rwanda. The market in Ethiopia consists of 90 stalls for trade designated to  provide social distancing of 2.5 metres in accordance with safe trade protocols. It will feature sections for selling meat, milk, fruit, and vegetables. Other facilities include prayer rooms, breastfeeding centres, cold chain rooms and handwashing points.  Water harvesting tanks and milk handling containers are currently under procurement. Qamar Cige, a meat trader, is one of the women who stand to benefit from the upgraded market. BAD GOAT In the dusty border-town of Tog Wajaale, Somaliland Qamar Cige sits outside an open market building. It’s an afternoon characterised by hot and dense air. Not far from here there is a gargle of women buying camel milk from a rusty old pickup. In the market women...

International trade, however, has a huge part to play in keeping the UK’s florists stocked with fresh cut flowers. The second top import market to the UK for flowers is Kenya, which supplies just over 8 percent of British-sold flowers, or 10,000 tons, worth not far off £67 million. Cut flowers account for 25% of all Kenyan imports to the UK. The Institute of Export & International Trade has been working with donor organization TradeMark Africa (TMA) to implement a ‘digital trade corridor’ between the UK and Kenya to help simplify trade between the two nations. The initiative, called the ‘UK-Kenya Trade Logistics Information Pipeline’ (TLIP), aims to eliminate documentation and introduce better visibility in the supply chains flowing between the UK and Kenya. This initiative builds upon on the Kenya-UK Economic Partnership Agreement, which was signed in December 2020. TLIP's system uses blockchain technology to link all those in a supply chain together, enabling faster logistics and easier trading. Marco Forgione, director general of the IOE&IT, said: “This Valentine’s Day when you were giving your loved one a beautiful bouquet of flowers, consider the journey they have taken to put that smile on their face. Around nine different organizations are involved with the transportation of flowers from Kenya before they enter your home and all of these actions in the supply chain require documentation to move the goods along on their journey. “The trade corridor we are creating will provide more transparency and enable all actors to view the...

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Tanzania has one of the biggest agricultural sectors in Africa, with multiple commodities produced and exported to multiple markets in the world. Dominant agricultural commodities marked for export include cashew nuts, tobacco, cotton, cocoa, tea, and sesame. These commodities have recorded significant increase in exports over years. However, gains to farmers and communities engaged in production have remained limited, with income distribution of the proceeds skewed to middlemen. Middlemen often purchase these commodities from farmers at cheaper prices (gate price), only to re-sell with large margins, leaving farmers with minimal incomes to sustain their livelihoods.[/vc_column_text][vc_video link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7e8nx91zm0" align="center"][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]TradeMark Africa (TMA)’s support to Tanzania’s Mercantile Exchange (TMX) started in 2019, to ensure that farmers can access reasonable prices for specified commodities, based on principles of fair competition, transparency, and quality of their produces. Funded by United Kingdom’s Agency for International Development, Ireland and Norway through TMA, the project support aimed to automate the TMX system, to allow for online trading of key agricultural crops, which has also been accompanied by training sessions to more than 15,000 stakeholders, including farmers (sellers), cooperative unions, buyers, aggregators, officers, and industrial professionals on ways and benefits of online commodity trading. With TMA’s support, value chains analysis for sesame, green gram, lentils, cashew nut, cocoa, and livestock have been conducted.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Currently, cashew nuts, sesame, cocoa, lentils, and green grams are being traded through the commodity exchange system, which has led to increased incomes for farmers (in certain instances, more than double the price), increased revenues for the Government...

“Armed men broke his windscreen and started hitting him with an iron bar. They stole the goods he was carrying and left him for dead. By the time help came, it was too late. He had died from excessive bleeding,”-Patrick Mutinda, former Truck driver. East Africa’s Regional Electronic Cargo Tracking system (RECTS) has many benefits some of which include safety of cargo, expedited clearance at borders and reduced dumping. To many long-distance truck drivers, it has assured them of safety on the sometimes-treacherous transport corridors. RECTs is a webbased system that provides a harmonised platform for revenue authorities in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda to monitor transit cargo from loading to offloading thus curbing cargo dumping, diversion among other risks. Over the years, cargo volume along transport corridor has increased and this raised the need to facilitate quick movement of cargo without compromising customs security controls. That is the well-known story. The untold story is that of long-distance truck drivers ferrying high risk and often in demand goods, whose lives have been saved from armed robbers by the rapid response unit attached to RECTs. Drivers like Mutinda. Mutinda is a former long-distance truck driver. He recalls his perpetual discomfort driving along Kiu, a lonely hilly section of the Mombasa-Nairobi highway near Salama, as the area was known for armed gangsters who attacked cargo trucks. His friend lost his life in one such incidence. “My friend… as his truck slowed down, armed men attacked him, injuring him, and taking off with the goods...

“They are not TBS standards. They are the people’s standards,” Ms. Kezia Mbwambo, the Director of Quality Management at the Tanzania Bureau of Standards (TBS) begins by setting the record straight. Ms. Mbwambo feels it is very important to address the constraint of a misguided public perception about standards and their uses. She does not however feel it is important nor helpful to apportion blame. On behalf of the TBS Director General, she has been leading efforts at the Tanzania Bureau of Standards to make standards work better for Tanzanians with support from TradeMark Africa (TMA). [caption id="attachment_55084" align="alignnone" width="1607"] “There has been slow uptake of standards, this despite the fact that TBS has always used participatory design strategies to come up with these standards, in line with international protocols and requirements for development of national standards,” Ms. Mbwambo says.[/caption] With support from TMA, the bureau is embarking on a process of improving its service delivery mechanisms to its stakeholders. Part of this improvement includes developing a training programme on standardization and quality assurance, mainly targeting micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) using both paper-based and digital platforms. The bureau is also developing an Integrated Standardization, Quality assurance, Metrology and Testing (SQMT) system that will automate the key administrative processes used to offer services to its stakeholders. For TBS, this is expected to quicken the process of certifying products and expand the base of products that have met standards. For many entrepreneurs with dreams to do well in the country,...

Bureaucratic delays related to standards certification almost led Michael Kimeu* to give up on his ambitions to set up a bottled water business in early 2010’s. Kimeu set up a water distillation and bottling plant on the outskirts of Kajiado, a county to the south west of Kenya’s capital Nairobi. However, he knew that he could not embark on his new venture without his product acquiring certification from the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS). The certification is a mandatory requirement for all locally manufactured products before they are shipped to markets locally or even regionally. It is issued to a firm as confirmation that a product conforms to requirements set by the Bureau. As soon as his equipment was installed and first product samples generated, Kimeu lodged his application for a permit. Almost half a year later, he was yet to receive the permit and attempts to follow up led to frustration. The delay had a negative impact on his business as supermarkets and other retailers could not stock his product without the KEBS mark of quality. It is an offence under the Standards Act Cap 496 of the laws of Kenya to offer a product for sale without a valid standard mark of quality. To keep his business active, Kimeu altered his initial plans and set up a small-scale water-refilling business, awaiting the KEBS license. "The kin d of investment I had made could not be recouped by the new strategy and I found that I was running into...