[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...

Mariam Babu, 43, a mother of five and grandmother to two who sells eggs in Kenya and salt in Uganda via the Busia border town, is not the image that springs to mind when you think of a smuggler. Yet when she recalls her time bringing in products from Kenya into Uganda through abandoned bush routes in the dead of the night, around 10 years ago, that is the word she chooses to describe herself. [caption id="attachment_55075" align="alignnone" width="640"] “Don’t get me wrong. We were not bringing in dangerous contraband,” she notes, “it was things like rice, wheat flour, and household goods. Yet the process of going through the proper routes at the Busia border, before the One-Stop Border Post was built was too complicated and too difficult for us small traders. The offices we have today didn’t exist. None of us knew where to go to clear our goods, the officers were rude and corrupt, and there was much paperwork to do - it was all so expensive. We never felt welcome at the border!”[/caption] Today, Mariam is the chairwoman of the Women’s Cross Border Traders Cooperative Society. From her office at the Women’s Trade Desk at the Busia One-Stop Border Post (OSBP), she reflects on her decade-long transformation. The changes at the border over the past several years, she says, have not only changed the border but also changed her life. She notes the establishment of the East African Community (EAC) Common Market, the construction of the OSBP...

From commercial to regulatory formalities, export procedures are often burdensome and time consuming for the average businessperson. Small delays in the implementation of any of these or more procedures have the potential to bring serious negative impact on businesses. “Buyers’ minds are often directed at obtaining a quality service or product, and in a timely manner. They are not too empathetic on procedural issues on the suppliers’ side. This burden is the exporters’ and cannot be shifted to anyone else,” explains Octavian Kiviryo, an expert in freight and logistics who has worked with many exporting businesses in Tanzania. Certificates of Origin (CoO) are important and mandatory pieces of documentation for the export business. As the name suggests, CoO details the origin of goods in a consignment. For a long time, a CoO cumbersome procedural requirement slowed down the exporting process from Tanzania. Tanzania Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (TCCIA) and Zanzibar National Chamber of Commerce, Industry & Agriculture (ZNCCIA) are the institutions vested with the full mandate of verifying the origin of all goods manufactured or processed in Tanzania for the export market and therefore, the issuance of the Certificates of Origin. For a long time, they used manual process, that was littered with a lot of paper-work and multiple visits by traders to offices. Today, and with support from TradeMark Africa (TMA) the two institutions have adopted an electronic system for application of CoO greatly cutting back on transaction costs and time traders incurred. This is premised on...

Modesta Nekesa, 31, has been a farmer for most of her adult life. However, it was not until two years ago that she started making money from her land by cultivating and selling a crop that was unfamiliar in her community - chilli. Ms. Nekesa lives in Busia, a town on the Kenya-Uganda border where she moved to after getting married at 17. She was widowed at 23 with three children. Her late husband, Michael Oluoch had bequeathed her five acres of land, but inheritance tussles saw half of it taken away by her brothers-in-law. And so, destiny subjected her to a life of subsistence, cultivating maize, beans, and occasionally sweet potatoes. She barter-traded some for other household utilities and the largest portion was consumed by her young family. "We fed off the land, and for years, I never had a shilling to my name. Any little money I got from selling part of my (not-so-good) harvests was immediately spent on books, pencils, uniform repairs or other such immediate needs," she said. All this changed after Ms. Nekesa accepted an invitation from a friend to attend an agriculture seminar organised by the Joyful Women Organization (JOYWO), an implementing partner of TradeMark Africa’s (TMA) Women and Trade programme. This course opened her eyes to a world of farming entrepreneurship. [caption id="attachment_55052" align="alignnone" width="640"] "We fed off the land, and for years, I never had a shilling to my name. Any little honey I got from selling part of my (notso-good) harvests...

The Editorial of Burundi’s Jimbere Magazine recently remarked that the TradeMark Africa (TMA) Women in Trade programme has, “Offered hundreds of Burundian women and girls the opportunity to learn and achieve their dreams. It has restored their pride in earning incomes, enabling them to become taxpayers and therefore contribute to the development of the country. Before the interventions, these women lived in fear of authorities and dreaded the day their businesses would be closed for non-compliance.” TMA has supported Burundi women traders since 2012, and formally launched a Women in Trade project in 2017 with funding from Netherlands. This progamme continues to train women traders in basic business practices and regional trade laws, as well connecting them to new markets. One of the implementing partners is Association Des Femmes Entrepreneurs Du Burundi (AFAB), a local association that advocates for the interests of businesswomen in the country. AFAB brings together various women-owned businesses and, “of the 400 men and women entrepreneurs targeted to benefit from training, 318 have been reached,” says Immaculalee Nsengiyumva, the AFAB Executive Secretary. AFAB’s success cuts across the country impacting the women cross border traders at Kobero-Kabanga border to those living further afield in Gasorwe. Zirfa Hamissi, business woman at the Kobero-Kabanga border When AFAB started training women traders around Kobero-Kabanga border, the crossing point between Tanzania and Burundi, a vocal and sceptical Zirfa Hamissi was among its first beneficiaries. “I had a hard time believing in stories told by AFAB and other trainers. But AFAB came...

A few years ago, the cargo handling section of Mombasa port teamed with dusty and sweaty workers busy hauling  heavy packages on their backs, from the warehouses to the waiting lorries. Injuries and chest pains were a norm. One of these workers was Humphrey Agini. He recounts how the polluted and risky work environment caused him to take many sick leaves; and quantifies the wages he lost, as a result, to the thousands of shillings. He wishes away those back breaking days . For years, Humphrey, who is employed by Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) spent his days offloading heavy sacks of clinker, coal, fertiliser and industrial chemicals. The fierce sun would burn on ruthlessly. He worked for sheer survival. Each time he was about to give up, he remembered his parents back in the rift valley region of Kenya and his younger siblings who relied on the earnings he made. He became a sort of expert in handling dirty cargo. Yet, protective gear was unheard of and many were the days when both he and his colleagues fell ill. Just as hundreds of other port workers shared in his fate; so, did hundreds of importers and exporters, who contended with the delays this caused to exit or enter the port. Greening the port takes off Humphrey’s hard work and diligence had caught the eye of his superiors. And so, when KPA in partnership with TMA transitioned to mobile harbour cranes for bulk cargo handling in 2017, to increase port productivity, he was...

Many years ago, Juliana Mtenga worked as a simple tailor in Tanzania's city of Dodoma. She earned a small income, which she didn't mind because she considered her real full time job as that of taking care of her children and the house. As any caring mother, Juliana was concerned about her children’s nutrition – more so for her youngest who was a toddler in 2010.  It bothered her that quality baby formula was expensive and unavailable. At one point, like other women in her village, she resigned to this fate, until one day when she decided that she had had enough. Juliana embarked on a very ambitious mission: that of making her own baby formula. She scored text books and magazines, reading about recipes and soon enough, she had a game plan. She began taking various dried grains such as millet and sorghum to local grinding mills. Afterwards, she would mix them into proportions that ensured nutritious meal for her child. As time passed, her neighbors noticed her product. Increased interest and demand convinced her to start stocking a few packets in her small tailoring shop. A worker at Juliana Mtenga's factory making a sale By 2012, Juliana had increased her monthly production from 5kgs to 200kgs. And, it seemed that she had hit the ceiling, because up to this point, she had exhausted the market that was in close proximity to her. That, and the fact that she viewed the baby formula business as a side activity, not a main source of income. And then, Juliana met officials from Tanzania Women Chambers...