Kikuubo is one of East Africa’s most important trade hubs, handling goods from across the region and the world. An estimated 10,000 women work as small-scale traders in the area, making it a fitting setting for the launch of a new initiative aimed at empowering women who drive Uganda’s trading economy. Announced in July by Uganda’s Minister of Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, Amelia Kyambadde and launched 15th October in Nairobi as part of wider regional program, TradeMark’s East Africa (TMA) Women and Trade program will partner with Uganda Women Entrepreneurs Association Ltd (UWEAL)—targeting 4,000 female traders in and around Kampala, Mukono and Jinja. The programme will give women information and training about the East African Community (EAC) import and export procedures, how to access markets in the EAC and amplify their voices so that they can participate in national and regional trade policy. It also aims to work with 400 women-owned light manufacturing businesses that add value to products e.g. process honey, juice, nuts, herbals and other products, helping them to form sector based cooperatives to address non-tariff barriers, enhance standards for their products and access new market linkages within the region, with an end goal of increasing exports from this market segment by 10 per cent by the end of 2016. Women in Uganda—as in much of Africa—find it more difficult to access resources and opportunities than men. They are often less able to obtain credit, land rights and education, creating huge impediments to starting and expanding a business....

The 19th century British colonialist Cecil Rhodes’ dream of unifying Africa from "Cape to Cairo" was not too far-fetched after all. In a poetic sense, tinged with a dash of de ja vu, this dream was fulfilled with the launch of the Tripartite Free Trade Area Agreement (TFTA),in the idyllic Egyptian city of Sharm el Sheikh on the Red Sea when 26 African Heads of State endorsed an economic integration plan for the continent on a scale never witnessed before. The new trade arrangement, signed on Wednesday, June 10 2015, was described by President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe as creating a “borderless continent”. It assembled three regional economic communities (RECs) into a single free trade area that establishes a framework for preferential tariffs to ease the movement of goods and people in the region. “We have told the world today…of our desire to adopt practices that are necessary to increase trade among ourselves. We will do whatever is possible to activate this agreement,” said Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi when he hosted 26 heads of state representing the largest trading bloc in Africa and one of the biggest free trade areas in the world. The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) combine a population of over 625 million people, making up over half of Africa’s population and a GDP of over USD 1 trillion. According to a study by the Institute of Development Studies at the University of...

The East African Community Legislative Assembly (EALA) recently passeda legislation to effectively eliminate non-tariff barriers to trade (NTBs) among East African Community (EAC) Partner States. Known as the East African Community Elimination of Non-Tariff Barriers Act, 2015, the law will likely contribute to increased intra-EAC trade once ratified nationally by each of the five EAC Partner States of Kenya, Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. NTBs are partly to blame for the limited intra-EAC trade, estimated at US$ 5,805.6 million in 2013 according to data from the EAC Secretariat. Historically, regional integration has led to increased trade over the years. Here in the EAC, the entry into force of theEAC Customs Union in 2005 saw the implementation of the Common External Tariff for goods imported into the region in three bands (0% for raw materials, capital goods, agricultural inputs etc.; 10% for intermediate goods and other essential industrial inputs;and 25% for finished products). Goods on the ‘sensitive list’, however, have higher tariffs applied,some as high as 75% as is the case with rice. By 2010, EAC Partner States agreed to eliminate all internal tariffs. Goods from any EAC Partner State are therefore meant to be charged 0% customs duty when traded with any of the other four Partner States.That is the good news. The bad news is that with the fall of tariffs, NTBstend rise, with the impact of further restricting international trade. NTBs are trade-restrictivemeasures other than ordinary customs tariffs that States apply with the intention of restricting international trade...

Three little boys in Kigali are sharing a lollipop. They lick it in turns. The lollipop is imported, so 45% of its cost is due to transport and allied costs. It might have been made in Kenya or Tanzania or even further afield, and it has travelled thousands of kilometres and several borders. So whichever of the boys bought that treat, he’s paying part of the freight clearance charges, handling charges, insurance, fuel costs and the salary of the trucker who got it to the Rwandan capital. Logistics is a critical yet easily neglected component of economic development. Investment in agriculture is futile if there is no supply chain in place to get produce to market. Essential medication is rendered ineffective if it cannot be transported in the appropriate conditions. Consumer goods cannot improve people’s lives if the cost of importing them means they are too expensive for people to access. Yet in discussions of “sustainable development goals” or “poverty reduction”, there is too often a tendency to focus on headline targets and forget about the mechanics of delivery. In East Africa, transport and freight costs are among the highest in the world, with freight logistics expendituremore than 50% higher per kilometre than in Europe or the United States.This extra cost is caused by a ‘logistics gap’: a lack of infrastructure, technology and expertise affecting everything from road networks, to payment systems and warehousing facilities. In landlocked countries like Rwanda and Burundi, this gap is even more pronounced: transport costs...

Early in May 2014 the TradeMark Africa communications department published an impact study that included the following statement: “In October 2013, Presidents Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya agreed to implement a Single Customs Territory (SCT) between them as members of the East African Community. Tanzania and Burundi followed suit at the Summit in November 2013. “At a stroke (of the pen), the agreement removed multiple weighbridges, police and customs checks along the Mombasa-Kampala-Kigali route and introduced computerised clearance and electronic tracking and other innovations that have overturned many of the hurdles to free trade or Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) that the Northern Corridor was infamous for.” The phrase ‘single customs territory’ is fashionable in almost every discussion and media piece about regional integration. It is used in connection with measures to improve efficiency of the Northern Corridor and even with the planned standard gauge Mombasa-Malaba railway line. It is in the name of the single customs territory or SCT, as it is lovingly known, that investments are being made on the Central Corridor from Dar es Salaam to the landlocked countries. So, what exactly is a Single Customs territory (SCT)? Is it the same as the Customs Union (CU)? Is the East African Community (EAC) going to achieve the SCT in June 2014 as directed by the heads of state? To answer these questions we need to understand the following concepts concerning levels of integration of countries in trading blocks. • Where the...

A recent debate lamented the "dying creative spirit in young Africa" as a result of an "increasing focus on private sector approaches and values". But is that the case? What about private sector creativity? At the East African Business Summit at the Mount Kenya Club, Dr. Kamau Gachigi of the University of Nairobi FABLAB highlighted an astonishing array of innovations by young Kenyans, including a wireless mesh network that can transmit a Wi-Fi signal across 10 km and help bring cheap Internet technology to low income neighbourhoods. Dying creative spirit? Really? By the way, the debate was on Facebook, the product of a start-up innovator. The irony of this seemed to be lost. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that East Africa is an exciting place to be – for business AND for innovation – and the world is paying attention (Check out the Economist issue Africa Rising). According to the Economist, in eight of the past 10 years, Africa has grown faster than East Asia, including Japan, and the IMF expects Africa to grow by 6% this year and nearly 6% in 2012, about the same as Asia. Meanwhile, the Society for International Development asserts that foreign direct investment inflows have more than doubled in the past 10 years from $688 million in 2000 to $1.7 billion in 2010, with the highest recipients being Tanzania and Uganda. On a regional level, the EAC received an investment boost from China in the last quarter of 2011 worth $500 million, earmarked for...

Whenever I talk or write about East African integration I use this picture of three boys sharing a lollipop. I don’t know where the photo came from or who the boys are, but I do know that it speaks volumes about the way trade could lift millions out of poverty. [caption id="attachment_178" align="alignleft" width="407"] Three little boys in Kigali sharing a lollipop[/caption] These three little boys in Kigali are sharing a lollipop. They lick it in turns. The lollipop is imported, so 45% of its cost is due to transport and allied costs. It might have been made in Kenya or Tanzania or even further afield, and it has travelled thousands of kilometres and several borders. So whichever of the boys bought that treat, he’s paying part of the freight clearance charges, handling charges, insurance, fuel costs and the salary of the trucker who got it to the Rwandan capital. It’s no wonder that the boys cannot afford to buy their own lollipops but have to share one. Transport costs in East Africa are among the highest in the world. This is largely due to infrastructure and regulatory constraints but the major reasons for the high costs are policy, legal and regulatory constraints, not infrastructure. It’s not only the slow ports or bad roads that up the price, its old policy and legal habits and slow border crossings. It takes 28 days and $600 to move a 40 foot container from the port of Shanghai, China to Mombasa, Kenya. It...

The general public and supporters of East Africa’s regional integration are extremely interested in the idea of a six-lane “super-highway” between Mombasa and Kigali reported in last week’s East African, judging by the number of inquiries and words of encouragement TradeMark Africa (TMA) continues to receive on the topic. The story said that TradeMark Africa (TMA) will facilitate the project. We at TradeMark Africa (TMA) would like to take the opportunity to clarify our involvement in this important concept. At TradeMark Africa (TMA), we aim to reduce East Africa’s high trade costs that are amongst the highest in the world, in order to unleash better competitiveness, more economic growth and trade across the region. TradeMark Africa (TMA) is an East African multi-donor funded development agency which is supporting the private sector, East African governments and the East African Community. TradeMark Africa (TMA) will support such a project if East Africa’s key stakeholders such as national governments, the private sector and the EAC want to pursue it. The super-highway is a highly transformational idea, a concept that has grown out of our discussions at different fora with various national and regional institutions in the East Africa Community (EAC) member states. There is a lot of interest in the concept, but it is not yet a “project.” Based on this considerable interest, TradeMark Africa (TMA) will undertake a series of analytical studies to look more closely at the concept on several levels. We will then be taking these ideas and presenting them...