An atmosphere of calm welcomes you as you enter the lobby of the Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority (RURA). This wasn’t always the case, according to Francois Gatete, the Director for Information Systems at RURA. Before 2019, RURA, which regulates all public utilities in Rwanda, struggled with the mundane, time-consuming manual processes of issuing out licenses, resulting in a crowded and chaotic lobby. To understand how complicated the scenario was, imagine this: a vendor would initiate a license request, but the finance department, trapped in an information void, couldn’t know, or track the progress of the application. This opaqueness made the process frustrating and inefficient, and many traders would visit RURA offices daily to follow up on the all-important piece of paper. David Butera, Programme Manager, TradeMark Africa (TMA), pointed out that a scoping exercise that sought to identify and resolve trade barriers in Rwanda highlighted RURA as one of the agencies that was still using manual processes; with traders saying this was a big problem that made trading difficult and costly. “We used to have silos in the application chain as there was no way for a team, say, finance to gain visibility on the status of the license application in the pipeline,” Gatete recalls of the disjointed processes. Trying to manually serve over 20,000 businesses led to many deadlocks both for RURA and the businesses. Innocent Twahirwa, who runs Jali Transport, remembers submitting thousands of paper forms and making numerous follow-up visits to RURA offices to get licenses for...

Simplification works.  Exporters, and importers of fresh or dry produce to Kenya are required to register with Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS). Until recently, this registration took between 10 to 28 days with the traders completing a total of 10 steps and filling in 13 documents. A time-consuming effort that was also costly. Simplification of processes by KEPHIS have reduced the number of steps by half - to 5- and requirement to submit only 3 documents, translating into a 62 % reduction of traders’ transactional costs The Information for Trade in Kenya Portal (InfoTradeKE) serves as a one-stop shop for information on trade-related procedures, from various government directorates, and provides a step-by-step guide on foreign trade procedures from the user’s (exporter/importer) point of view. It was implemented by Kenya Trade Network Agency (KenTrade) in partnership with TradeMark Africa (TMA) through funding from United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Netherlands and with technical support from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The Portal has approximately 10,000 visitors each month. It has proven to be an ideal tool for regulators to analyse interventions in the export and import chain, providing insights on bottlenecks and barriers to trade that need to be dealt with to make the trader’s experience more efficient. The results from the simplification of the procedure to register as an exporter of fresh and dry produce with the Kenya Plant Health Inspectorate Service (KEPHIS) provides a perfect illustration of the power of this...

Kenya’s horticultural farmers are being trained in good agricultural practices. History has shown us the social and economic transformation that is possible when people can grow enough food. It has also confirmed that when the same people access markets to sell excess produce, generations will feel and enjoy the impacts. Thus, the ability to improve livelihoods is what makes agriculture a business and not just a development initiative. A group of Kenyan farmers are now demonstrating this by financially supporting their local community health centre.  Farmers from Kangai Horticulture Marketing Co-operative Society in Kirinyaga County, in the central region of Kenya, built a maternity wing and a laboratory in their local health centre with proceeds from the sale of string beans and baby corn. The enterprising group struck a deal with exporters, that for every kilo of produce sold, a shilling is invested in the hospital project. Currently, the health centre attends to 150 to 200 patients daily. “We receive services we couldn’t receive before, such as TB (tuberculosis) and CCC (Comprehensive Care Centre) for HIV and AIDS patients,” explains Mary Wambui, a technical adviser with a local fresh producer organisation, adding that the number of staff in the health centre has grown from 4 to 22. The hospital extension is Peter Kanyuiro Ngigi’s proud legacy, together with his Fresh Producers Association of Kenya (FPEAK) certificate. This certificate, he explains, has been the key to his ability to access international markets, a market that has in many occasions locked out...

Allen Twinomugisha, a mother of 7, trades at the Uganda/Rwanda Border at Mirama Hills. She crosses from Uganda to the Rwanda town of Kayonza to sell bananas and other agricultural produce at-least 4 times a day. She makes a profit of UGX10, 000 per day (US$61 per month). Judging from the busy transporters on bicycles, motorcycles and matatus, the cross border business at the newly opened Ntungamo/Kagitumba One Stop Border Post (OSBP) is thriving. Allen's journey has not always been easy. Various infrastructural and policy initiatives around the borders are expected to not only improve hers and other cross border traders operations, but also to lead to a reduction in transit time at the border crossings. Adoption of key policy changes agreed at the regional level complemented by information campaigns targeting informal cross border traders will enable informal trade to streamline to formal trade, with cost savings to traders and improved revenue collection by governments. TMA is the government of Uganda’s Trade Facilitation strategic partner and has invested over US$ 52 million in the construction and operationalization of 5 One Stop Border Posts (OSBP). Allen recalls her trade journey between Uganda and Rwanda a few months ago when she had to use informal routes, which were littered by a plethora of bribes and harassment. She did not understand formal route requirements, stayed away from the main border offices and opted the informal route thinking it was cheaper.  She highlights new benefits, which she attributes to the new OSBP and information...

The mobile phone has become a critical platform for elimination of Non-Tariff Barriers in TZ. One of the biggest challenges the business community in East Africa face are non-tariff barriers. According to the East Africa Community, non-tariff barriers (NTB’s) cost the member countries close to US$490 million in 2010.  Some of them like land border procedures; port procedures, police roadblocks, weighbridges and bureaucratic administrative procedures restrict trade and consequently increase the cost of doing trade. To overcome this challenge, the Tanzania Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (TCCIA) with support from TradeMark Africa (TMA) introduced a NTBs SMS reporting system, an innovative tool that allows truckers, transporters, clearing and forwarding agents, report any obstacles along the road. Once a user lodges an SMS complaint, focal points from TCCIA relevant departments immediately call the sender and automatically notify responsible government agencies and private sector of the NTB complaint for further action. Truck drivers like Juma Ahmed recognise the benefit of the SMS system saying, "This SMS text messaging system will help report some problems I experience. For example, when taking my load from Dar es Salaam to Kampala; each weighbridge records something different to what I have on my documents, which means I am often held up until we come to some sort of agreement regarding the axel load." Partners have been raising awareness on the SMS texting system and there exists an even greater opportunity to train people on how to effectively use it. The online NTBs SMS system encourages...

TMA is supporting SEATINI in Uganda to build capacity for export trade, specifically for maize and sesame, two key Uganda staples. The project is recording wins: hundreds of Farmers in Uganda’s Nakaseke district are now earning UGX 700 from 400 UGX for graded and sorted maize, according to an independent evaluation.   As Kamya Kirubira leads us through a syrup-coloured maize field in his home district of Nakaseke in Central Uganda, the hard leaves scratch gently against our skin, assuring us the crop is as dry as it looks. Juxtaposed against a powder blue sky, the rows of maize are an idyllic scene that could have come straight from the front of a well-branded breakfast cereal box. This is Nakaseke today. Maize is in high demand in East Africa. It is the foundation of every staple food, in every country in the region. Every morning, afternoon and evening, middle class families sit down to eat maize, whether in the form of a roasted maize cob, a bowl of ugali (maize porridge), a fried chapatti, or an intoxicating local brew. Kenya is opening up to Ugandan maize and other markets will surely follow, but only if the maize makes the grade. In fact, the demand for this cereal crop far outweighs its production in East Africa. Yet, by Kamya’s own accounts, he wasn’t always the 40-acre owning commercial farmer he is now, and Nakaseke wasn’t always hailed as a model district for maize growing. In fact in 2013, when the World...

The adoption of a Single Customs Territory (SCT) in January 2014 has contributed to an 11.5 per cent increase in volume of goods handled at the port of Mombasa. Rwanda and Uganda have saved a combined $400 million in clearance and inland shipping costs from the port. The five member states of the East African Community are working for towards greater economic integration, are building a single, coherent and efficient market in the region in keeping with their obligations under the EAC Customs Union. Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda Protocol launched a pilot SCT in January 2014, unifying the Customs procedures along the Mombasa-Kampala-Kigali route, to create a flow of freight from Mombasa port to the interior and back. Under the SCT, several weighbridges and Customs posts have been streamlined or removed altogether to allow for the free movement of goods. For instance, oil consignments intended for Uganda and Rwanda are now cleared in bulk of up to 1 million litres in a single transaction. This results in operational cost savings and the exporting companies are no longer required to submit or clear each truckload individually. “We are able to load out trucks from the port of Mombasa, which was not the case before. This has increased our supply volumes. We are able to pay for the cargo well in advance since there is no longer any fear of diversion of the commodity locally,” said Sam Bukenya, supply co-ordinator for Vivo Energy Uganda. The time taken to clear fuel shipments from...

It’s a busy lunchtime at the Grand Legacy Hotel in Kigali and Vincent Safari, Technical Adviser with TradeMark Africa (TMA) in Rwanda, is attending a meeting of Central Corridor member states. The Central Corridor is a transport highway used by trucks to carry goods between the port of Dar es Salaam and the states of Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. Vincent Safari is attending the meeting not only as a TMA technical advisor, but also as coordinator of the Rwandan National Monitoring Committee on non-tariff barriers, a group made up of representatives from the government, private sector and civil society and chaired by the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Safari explains that although Rwanda has had a National Monitoring Committee since 2008, it was not effective because there was no national strategy in place to eliminate non-tariffs barrier (NTBs) and no full-time coordinator. In 2011 TMA became involved, assisting the Ministry of Trade and Industry to revamp the National Monitoring Committee so that it could become a driving force to eliminate NTBs at both national and regional level. “Before TMA got involved it used to take about 15 to 17 days to get to Kigali from either Dar es Salaam or Mombasa,” explains Safari. “Now from Dar it is between three and six days. And from Mombasa between five and seven days.” This significant reduction was achieved through a series of major interventions that emanated from partnerships between TMA and East Africa’s governments, including Rwanda....

Question: How can Customs authorities and importers work together so that tax revenues increase while importers save money? It sounds like a contradiction in terms. How can importers hope to save money when the more products they import the more tax they pay? Yet it is happening in East Africa where Customs reforms, facilitated by TradeMark Africa (TMA), are not only encouraging importers to be tax compliant, but are also helping them to save money on transport and related costs. Robert Bapfakurera, founder and Managing Director of Roba General Merchants in Kigali Rwanda, is a good example. His company imports fast moving products such as rice, cooking oil, sugar and soap, from countries as close as Uganda and as far away as Pakistan and Indonesia. For a landlocked nation like Rwanda, importing products from overseas used to be a stop-go process, a minefield of bureaucracy combined with a plethora of barriers that included weighbridges, roadblocks and unofficial payments at borders. Today, thanks to expertise and training provided by Rwanda Revenue Authority (RRA) in collaboration with TMA, the journey is less stressful, with a reduction in transit time of an incredible two thirds. For Bapfakurera the change began in 2012 when he was chosen by the RRA to become one of only three Authorised Economic Operators in Rwanda, referred to as ‘AEOs’. AEOs, are accredited importers and exporters benefiting from preferential treatment and incentives because they have demonstrated a history of compliance. The new status gives Roba General Merchants the right...

Laurent Demuynck has a passion for mushrooms. He calls them “the meat of the poor” because of their high nutritional value. As founder and CEO of Kigali Farms, a Kigali based mushroom processing company, he wants to see Africa catch up with the rest of the world when it comes to growing mushrooms. In fact, he has a vision that in 10 to 15 years, thousands of people in Africa, maybe hundreds of thousands, will be making an income from mushrooms. Kigali Farms is one of 21 Rwandan food and agricultural companies that have recently benefited from global training, known as HACCP, that ensures standards in food safety are reached and maintained. HACCP, or Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point, is an effective tool to prevent biological, chemical and physical contamination of food, and should eventually lead to a company receiving widely accepted certification. Funded in Rwanda by TradeMark Africa (TMA) and implemented by the British Standards Institution (BSI) in partnership with the Rwanda Standards Board (RSB), the HACCP training aims to provide safety in every part of the food chain from the farmer, to the processor, to the retailer, through to the final consumed product. For the food producers of Rwanda, HACCP certification is one more step towards the coveted goal of exporting their products to the East African Community and beyond. Exports are critical to reducing Rwanda’s trade deficit, yet until recently it had limited scope to test products for mycotoxin (fungal infection) contamination. Instead, they were sent...