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...

Edna Mudibo, a Kenyan smallscale trader in the border town of Busia who frequents Uganda, has found a renewed drive to carry on with her business and has ended years of cat and mouse games with police officers and border officials. This, thanks to a new initiative that further seeks to bolster trade relations between Kenya and Uganda. Unwilling to pass through the gazetted routes due to payment of duty, Edna, and many of her fellow traders would use clandestine but dangerous routes to ferry goods across the Kenyan-- Ugandan border. At times she would hire a man in a wheelbarrow to transport her goods through rough terrain, away from the main road network which would take her days to cross the Kenyan side. When she would bump into police officers who were doing random surveillance, they would confiscate all her goods, take the money she had and sometimes beat her. “It is a terrible experience and sometimes women do this because of lack of experience. Majority of women who used to take these routes would end up being even raped by these policemen,” she said. She is among over 20,000 small scale traders in Kenya and Uganda who are now growing their fortunes by freely trading across the border, thanks to the new one stop border posts. The initiative, which was unveiled in February, 2018 by Presidents Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya and Yoweri Museveni of Uganda, combines two national border controls into one reducing the time it takes to...

Elizabeth Marami did not really know what she was getting into, when she applied to become a marine captain through the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA).  “It was not something that I was interested in as a kid, but I was always up for a challenge. When I got called in and I learnt what it was about I totally fell in love with the whole idea.”  Now Kenya’s first female marine pilot and a certified second officer, Elizabeth is the only woman out of 17 other trainee pilots at the port. At 26 years old, she is also among the younger people in her field. Neither this, nor the eight-hour days, or long months at sea, faze Elizabeth. She recalls spending one Christmas sailing to Saudi Arabia, in the middle of nowhere, with no cell phone network. “Such things make you really feel intimidated and for a split second you can question why you even chose to be here. But then you must know your end game. If you do, you can persevere and keep on going. If you are a go-getter you can achieve anything you want to achieve.” Still it requires something of an adjustment when Elizabeth first boards the ship and is the only woman in a crew of 50 - 100. “You have to fight for yourself to be perceived as equal. “ Thankfully, Elizabeth feels supported by her supervisors. “My superiors everywhere, even at the port have always been supportive of me. They said that...

TMA partnered with Uganda’s NUCAFE to invest in a coffee roasting machine. This enabled farmers to process coffee beans, ultimately increasing the value of their produce by 30% as compared to selling raw unprocessed beans. NUCAFE seeks to improve the lives of coffee farmers by promoting a farmer ownership model. The model holds that farmers should own their product throughout the value chain, from the coffee beans to the final export product. For a long time, farmers were only “custodians of coffee” says Joseph Nkandu the Executive Director of Nucafe, one of TMA’s partner in Uganda. They sold raw coffee to cooperatives, where it was de-husked, sorted and graded. At each stage of the value chain, the price of coffee increased but the growers only received payment for the minimum value at the first stage. In the 1990s, the Ugandan government liberalized the coffee industry meaning private buyers could now compete with cooperatives to buy raw coffee from farmers. By 1993, unable to compete, cooperatives collapsed, leaving farmers in disarray. Power of one To bridge the gap, NUCAFE undertook research that revealed farmers were largely ignorant of coffee beyond the trees in their farms. With the survey results, NUCAFE drew up a five-year strategic plan that centred on training and creating awareness amongst farmers. Organizing farmers into associations and cooperatives, followed, with the agreement that cooperatives would maximize income for members. And so, began the farmer owner business model which is changing the face of the Uganda coffee industry. Steps...

Co-operatives open opportunities for Rwanda cross-border traders. Driving south from Kigali to the Burundi border, you might think that Nemba is one of the luckier border towns in Rwanda. A good road connects its unusually quiet trading centre to the nation’s busy capital, and the journey lasts only an hour, unlike the winding, up-hill distances to other border towns. Surely no one in Nemba buying goods from Kigali to sell to Burundi, would have a hard time running a quick and easy cross-border business? Yet for women traders such as Benigne Maliboli, who sells a bottled local brew to Burundi, reduced transport costs to and from the capital did little to alleviate the gender-specific barriers to her cross-border trade.  Like many women traders, she lacked awareness of cross-border traders’ rights, rules and regulations as legislated by the East African Community. Today, thanks to TradeMark Africa (TMA) funded Rwandan NGO, Profemme/Twese Hamwe, the women know better. “We now know that there is someone at the border who can assist small-time cross-border traders, who gives us information we need about both sides of the border. Before, we were not aware that such services existed at the border,” Benigne Maliboli says of her newly formed co-operative. Many women traders purposefully do not register as such in order to bypass what they see as complications, and end up paying exorbitant bribes to keep their informal trade going. According to experts however, as informal as this trade is, it contributes significantly to the East African...

30-year-old Annie Nakizibu Mirembe has crossed borders in trade to market and expand her steel welding business. “I started doing it as a hobby because I love art and design. I never went to school to acquire this skill,” the graduate of Bachelor of Library and Information Science says of breaking barriers in the male-dominated steel welding world and attests to the opening up of markets in the East African Community. Ms. Mirembe employs six Ugandans and two Kenyans in her welding shop, based in Katwe, a Kampala suburb. As a cross border trader, Mirembe is no stranger to intra-regional trade challenges as just two weeks ago, she experienced a four day delay at the Malaba border as she shipped metal products to Kenya, “The system was down and no one explained. Such incidences make traders like us incur extra costs on accommodation and food and also delays our obligations to our clients.” She says. As a cross border trader, Mirembe is one of the few who grabbed the opportunities provided by EAC treaty and is already celebrating success. She has export clientele in Rwanda and Kenya and plans to enter the Burundi market in the near future.  The EAC Treaty states that the first stage of the integration would be the formation of a Customs Union with its primary objective being to facilitate inter and intra-regional trade in goods. “The trade system on the borders makes cross-border trade for small businesses like mine very fast and easy,” she says....

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...

Enriching farmers through mobile information. George Karari, 56, is a Kenyan smallholder farmer living in the rural area of Kikuyu, on the outskirts of Nairobi. He farms four and half acres of mostly maize and potatoes for home consumption and as a cash crop. George grew up in a farming community and learnt the ways of the soil from his mother. Like many farmers in Africa, over the years his crops have been subject to the vagaries of weather, climate, soil, disease and market prices, leaving George to support his wife and six children in shifting economic circumstances. He learnt from experience, from other farmers and from government education programmes, but often the information came after the event – too late to prevent late planting or a poor harvest. In March 2015, George signed up to a new, free mobile information service for farmers, called ‘iShamba’, (the Swahili word, shamba, means garden or farm). The idea was simple: to allow farmers to subscribe to mobile information on two crops, or livestock, on which they would receive weekly text messages, with vital facts to assist them in getting the most out of their products. George subscribes to maize and potato help lines, which send him up-to-date, weather information (straight from aWhere.com, a digital platform offering weather information based on accurate data) and market prices supplied by the National Farmers Information Service. In addition, George receives farming tips through text messages aligned to his two crops, the season, and to the region...

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...