The coastal city of Mombasa experiences heavy rains and flooding several times a year. Whenever the rains pound this historic destination, the storm water causes havoc sometimes resulting in loss of human life and destruction of property. Despite the constant flow of the mighty Tana River into the Indian Ocean and the huge volumes of rain water that Mombasa receives annually, the city suffers a major deficit in water supply. The constant flooding and lack of water management systems poses a health hazard as well. Case in point, in May this year an outbreak of Cholera and other water borne diseases followed in the wake of flooding and heavy downpour. Large government institutions have not been spared from constant shortages as, The Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) says it has never had enough water for use by either its workers, clients or general port users. Bernard Kyumbu, a frequent user of the port says many are the times he has been thoroughly embarrassed when he could not access sanitation facilities at the port, because they were locked. “I import cars and there have been times when after spending hours at the port waiting for clearance of containers and when the toilet facilities are shut down we are informed it is due to lack of water.” The Green Port Policy adopted by the port management with the support of TradeMark Africa (TMA) is expected, among other things, to address the issue of water harvesting, recycling, water purification, and sewerage treatment. Under the...

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...

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...

Environmental degradation is bad for trade and business growth especially when it directly affects the health and productivity of workers and neighbouring communities. The Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) with technical and financial assistance from TradeMark Africa (TMA) has initiated an elaborate Green Port Policy that will transform the port of Mombasa into a premier port of ‘clean fuels’ in Africa. Locals call it the ‘river of death’. In its thick foam, it gushes through the rocks and with a mournful murmur spills over a cliff into the sea turning the water below into a smelly gel. Another hot stream with an offensive smell flows gently through the Port of Mombasa. Along its long winding journey, the small stream picks up domestic and industrial effluents before spewing its load of putrid waste into the vast ocean. Similar ‘rivers of death’ spring from different parts of the City of Mombasa, pouring their deadly cargo into the Indian Ocean. Children, oblivious of the dangers posed and inured to the stench swim and play in the ocean waves breaking over the shore close to the point of discharge. Abdi Hassan, a fisherman from Likoni knows all too well the impact these rivers have on his trade. He walks the beach picking up sticks, which he hurls into the sea as if to deflect his thoughts from the reality he faces: “Many times we find dead fish floating in the water. They are normally bloated and smelly having died from the poisons of the industrial...

For years the yard resembled a dilapidated city abandoned to destruction. Large swamps inhabited by rodents and other creatures covered this muddy section of the port of Mombasa known as Yard Five. In the rainy season, the place would be extremely muddy and too soggy to be used by heavy container moving machines. In the dry season, the earth would crack and burst into loose soil emitting mountains of dust and creating a visibility challenge. In all weather, Yard 5 was a health hazard and unfit for human utilisation. However, the intervention of TradeMark Africa (TMA) has seen the Yard rehabilitated, paved and modernised. The dust is gone and so is the mud, replaced by a modern all-weather container yard. “For close to a 100 years, Yard 5 was an abandoned area. We could not use it for more than two weeks in a row in any given month,” says Kennedy Nyaga, Senior Project Engineer at KPA. The rehabilitation of Yard 5 has tremendously improved the business space at the port: “We are now able to stack the 293 20-foot containers at a height of four per slot in an average of four days.” The additional capacity created per year is 77,800 20-foot equivalent units (TEUS) at the KPA yard. This brings about an annual capacity of 1.32 million TEUs. “No wonder in 2014 we broke through the 1 million TEUs mark!” remarks Engineer Nyaga. The Editor of Our Ports Magazine, a publication of the Port Management Association of Eastern...

Mission of the Uganda National Bureau of Standards: “To provide standards, measurements and conformity assessment services for improved quality of life.” How much do you know about the quality of your television set? Or your washing powder? Even your toothpaste? You probably did some research before handing over the money for your TV, perhaps asking your friends, comparing costs, or even checking online. But did you bother to check that your washing powder actually does what the packet says it does, and won’t bring you out in a rash? As for your toothpaste, which you put in your mouth at least twice a day, how do you know it won’t poison you? In Uganda, the Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS) is the organisation that ensures that consumer products meet current standards including safety. In 2010 the UNBS, with assistance from the Sweden International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and TradeMark Africa (TMA) began a five year Quality Infrastructure and Standards Programme (QUISP)worth US$2.7 million, to establish and strengthen the standards development and implementation capacity of the country. The programme is designed to assist not just Ugandan producers, but also importers who suffer delays due to product testing. QUISP has five components: to put in place a national standards and quality strategy; to develop a legal framework for quality infrastructure;to coordinate the different players, especially regulators, standards developers and standards implementers; to build the capacity of the above players in terms of training and equipment; and to raise awareness of and...

Abdul Mohamed is a small business owner based in Dar es Salaam Tanzania. He owns and drives his own truck, which he uses to export plastic chairs to neighbouring Burundi. On Tuesday 9 September 2014 Abdul leaves Dar es Salaam at 7.00 AM carrying almost 2,000 chairs bound for a retailer in Bujumbura, the capital city of Burundi. The following day at 1.00 PM after 30 hours on the road, Abdul arrives at the border post of Kobero, just inside Burundi territory. Abdul Mohamed has been exporting chairs to Burundi for the last three years, a five-day return journey covering nearly 2,400 Km. He has made good time on this journey and he expects to spend up to four hours at the border post before getting back behind the wheel and on the road. But it wasn’t always so. Just four months before, Abdul would have had to make the same journey with two border stops, the first at Kabanga on the Tanzanian side of the border, then at Kobero. The procedure was lengthy. Abdul would, through the services of a clearing agent, declare his goods to the customs officers who would make a physical inspection of his cargo. That could take up to 12 hours as he waited in line with the many other truck drivers who use the central corridor to carry goods inland from the port of Dar es Salaam. Then, having completed that procedure, Abdul would go through immigration procedures before finally being allowed into the...

One of TradeMark Africa’s (TMA) objectives, towards its ultimate goal of reducing poverty by increasing trade in East Africa, is improved cross border processes for small traders, especially women. Empowering women in the East African Community as part of the regional integration process is essential to TMA’s goal of improving business competitiveness. Its long-term aim is, through policy change, to eliminate barriers that affect women in trade. In Uganda, TMA is contributing to this by advocating for policy change that will assist women cross border traders and by building capacity, specifically through women’s organisations. “Women need help because of their historic marginalisation”, said iCON Programme Director, Ben Matsiko Kahunga. “They need both confidence and means. If a woman is processing and packaging juice what does she need to cross borders? How does she access quality certification? How can she get advice about packaging, branding and standards?” That is a question that had never occurred to Esther Kabengano, a 37 year old mother of two, living in the Ugandan capital Kampala, where she runs a small business processing and selling fruit juice. She was just too busy trying to survive. By any standards, Kabengano’s business is small, operating from her home where she makes 10 litres of juice at a time (10 litres being the size of the container she uses to hold it) and which she sells on the streets of Kampala by the cupful. Her profit is Ush 4,000 per day - about US$1.5. The profits are not enough...

The five Partner States of the East African Community (EAC) are currently involved in activities related to the conformity of products traded within the region. The process which includes the preparation, approval and adoption of the standards related to those products is undertaken by the different national standards bodies in each one of the partner states. A common definition of a standard is a document approved by a recognized body that provides for common and repeated use rules, guidelines or characteristics for products or related processes and production methods, for which compliance may or may not be mandatory. Standards play an important role in regional integration. “Standards are vital to integration,” says José Maciel, Director of Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) and Standards at TradeMark Africa (TMA). “In addition to safeguarding the health and safety of the consumers and the environment, standards can cut the cost and time of doing business by huge amounts. In that sense, they are central to the future wealth of the EAC.” All across the five-nation regional economic bloc, TMA is helping national partners harmonize the standards of the most commonly traded goods in the region so that they can cross borders unimpeded by questions about their authenticity or reliability or origin. These include some of the most-traded goods in the EAC such as tea, coffee, iron, petroleum and edible fats and oils. TMA is assisting the EAC national bureaus of standards, the private sector and the EAC Secretariat on two levels: national and regional. At the...

‘The gateway to East and Central Africa’ and ‘the regional hub of international trade’ is how the Kenya Ports Authority website proudly introduces the port of Mombasa on Kenya’s coast. It goes on to declare that the port is ‘Growing business, enriching lives’ - a commendable role which should have equally laudable consequences for the people of East Africa as successful trade translates into reduced poverty. Yet it wasn’t always so. While the port has been the gateway to East Africa for the last 100 years, there were times when business in the region was obstructed due to congestion and delays at the port that resulted in overdue consignments, often of raw materials needed for manufacturing. Anthony Weru, Senior Programmes Officer of the Kenya Alliance of Private Sector Associations (KEPSA) recalls December 2012. “Some of our members had to lay off staff”, he said, “Because there were no raw materials to process. They were all at the port.” Only 18 months later Weru is telling a different story. “For the last six months we have seen a tremendous change and improvement in efficiency at the port due to political will,” he said. “Cargo clearance, either to or fro, is now taking an average of four days to its destination (in Kenya) when it used to take 14.” All depends on port efficiency. For the private sector, which in Kenya consists of up to 90% of the work force, the ability to forecast when raw goods will arrive makes all the...