New initiatives at KEBS reduce certification time, open doors for SMEs
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 […]
Renewed Drive To Improve Uptake of Standards Offers Fresh Hope to MSMEs
“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 […]
Technology reduces lurking danger for truck drivers and goods
“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 […]
Technology reduces lurking danger for truck drivers and goods
“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 […]
Front line staff at Mombasa Port protected from Covid-19 with provision of Personal Protective Equipment by the European Union
Mombasa, 20th August: The European Union (EU) Ambassador to Kenya H.E. Simon Mordue conducted a two-day visit of Mombasa during which he handed over Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) to Kenya Ports Authority to support its fight against COVID-19. The Ambassador was hosted by Mombasa Governor H.E Ali Hassan Joho, Permanent Secretary Ministry of East Africa […]
Mariam Babu – Reformed Smuggler Leading Women Cross-Border Traders on the Path to Self-Reliance
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 […]
COVID-19 Testing for Truck Drivers Helps Open Trade in IOM-TMA Partnership
Nairobi – IOM, the International Organization for Migration, is providing COVID-19 testing to thousands of truck drivers on Kenya’s borders. It’s part of a regional and national effort to fight the global COVID-19 pandemic and reopen trade across the East and Horn of Africa. Over 4,500 truck drivers and crews are being tested for the […]
Busia border front line staff receive Personal Protective Equipment from European Union amidst COVID-19
Busia, 17 July 2020: The European Union (EU) Ambassador to Kenya Simon Mordue, in partnership with TradeMark Africa (TMA), visited the Busia One-Stop Border Post (OSBP) – the border crossing point between Kenya and Uganda – to deliver Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) to the border authorities on the Ugandan and Kenyan side. The delivery was […]
East Africa trade body, TMA and research institution AERC partner to build evidence for policy decisions
Nairobi, 6th July 2020: TradeMark Africa and African Economic Research Consortium signed a memorandum of understanding to support a research programme that will increase the availability of data and evidence to support inclusive trade and gender policies in East Africa. The new programme, worth USD 500,000 is funded by the government of the Netherlands and will […]
The Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on Trade: Recent Evidence from East Africa
This paper uses Kenyan trade data published up through May 2020 to provide a preliminary evaluation of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on regional trade in the East African Community (EAC). Paradoxically, given the prevailing pessimism surrounding the prospects for global trade, Kenya actually experienced a significant improvement in exports in the first quarter […]