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...

Context: The Republic of Rwanda acceded to the EAC Treaty on 18th June 2007 and became full Members of the Community with effect from 1st July 2007. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is a central engine to driving Rwanda’s transformation to a knowledge-based economy, a fact Rwanda has acknowledged by allocating a budget to ICT as a percentage of its GDP that is at par with OECD countries. Rwanda continues to be one of the fastest-growing African countries in ICT and there are several avenues for growth for the ICT sector from e-commerce and e-services, mobile technologies, applications development and automation to becoming a regional center for the training of top quality ICT professionals and research as a robust ICT industry can create wealth, jobs and entrepreneurs. Rwanda is the most improved economy worldwide since 2005 (World Bank Doing Business Report, 2014). The report further reflects Rwanda the 2nd easiest to do business in Africa after Mauritius. Business environment reforms focusing on trade facilitation endeavor to reduce the cost associated with importing and exporting products. Many factors affect the cost of trade, including poor infrastructure, slow and cumbersome border regulatory and operating processes and non-tariff measures. Reforms targeted to these factors vary depending on the local contexts and problems yet overall they broadly seek to achieve more efficient, transparent, predictable and rule-based import and export processes. Reforms may include new or upgraded trade-related infrastructure, such as roads, ports and border posts; reviewing and (re)drafting the policies, laws and regulations governing...

David Sanga is a 65 year old resident of the Mbingu Village in the Kilombero District in Tanzania." David Sanga is a 65 year old resident of the Mbingu Village in the Kilombero District in Tanzania. David has been a cocoa farmer for more than ten years. Before Kokoa Kamili (KK) appeared in Mbingu, David sold his cocoa harvest to ‘Mocoa’, an organic cocoa out-growers association. As there was little competition for his produce, prices were determined by Mocoa and were non-negotiable. With little information on real market prices and the additional expense of having to take his produce to ‘buyer’ collection points, his farming business was a subsistence exercise characterized by insecurity and hardship, especially during the dry season when there was little to sell. When Kokoa Kamili begun their project in September 2014 in Mbingu, they introduced a healthy element of competition offering not only significantly higher prices for a better grade of cocoa but a collection service for ‘wet’ cocoa, at no extra charge. This additional service had not been an option before, but it not only simplified the process of getting his cocoa to market, but also significantly reduced his costs and the time spent organizing sales. The Sanga family had also been growing rice, maize and bananas on their small-holding, production having been expanded over the past five years to cover three plots in Mbingu. David also produces a wide range of fruits and vegetables to support the dietary needs of his family. Aside from...

More than 25,000 women across Africa have benefited from a TradeMark Africa (TMA) Women and Trade programme since 2015. This was revealed during the East Africa Trade and Development Forum (EATDF) held in Kampala between February 28 and March 1st, 2018. TMA has also increased market access for traders through establishment of cooperatives. Clare Kabakyenga is one of the programme beneficiaries and trades between the borders of Uganda and Rwanda. She recently scaled up to trade in Kenya’s Busia border. She shared with the audience her journey, successes and lessons. “I started trading to increase my income. My journey began in farming, first planting potatoes and then beans. Beans are viewed as women crops in my culture. Farmers in my district are mostly small scale and yet to penetrate markets competitively, you need volumes. So, we formed Manyakabi Area Cooperative enterprise which currently has 8105 farmers, 89% of who are women. Members supply the cooperative with maize and beans to bulk. Markets in Uganda were saturated by the same products and so, we contacted middle men who sold to Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo. On learning the profit margins, they got, we decided to take a risk and export to Rwanda. Our first export spent 8 days at the border because we had to get a certificate of origin (CoO) and a Phsytosanitary certificate. The CoO was from the export promotion board and Phsytosanitary certificate from ministry of agriculture. Being new in export business, we had a tough time...