A few years ago, the cargo handling section of Mombasa port teamed with dusty and sweaty workers busy hauling  heavy packages on their backs, from the warehouses to the waiting lorries. Injuries and chest pains were a norm. One of these workers was Humphrey Agini. He recounts how the polluted and risky work environment caused him to take many sick leaves; and quantifies the wages he lost, as a result, to the thousands of shillings. He wishes away those back breaking days . For years, Humphrey, who is employed by Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) spent his days offloading heavy sacks of clinker, coal, fertiliser and industrial chemicals. The fierce sun would burn on ruthlessly. He worked for sheer survival. Each time he was about to give up, he remembered his parents back in the rift valley region of Kenya and his younger siblings who relied on the earnings he made. He became a sort of expert in handling dirty cargo. Yet, protective gear was unheard of and many were the days when both he and his colleagues fell ill. Just as hundreds of other port workers shared in his fate; so, did hundreds of importers and exporters, who contended with the delays this caused to exit or enter the port. Greening the port takes off Humphrey’s hard work and diligence had caught the eye of his superiors. And so, when KPA in partnership with TMA transitioned to mobile harbour cranes for bulk cargo handling in 2017, to increase port productivity, he was...

Many years ago, Juliana Mtenga worked as a simple tailor in Tanzania's city of Dodoma. She earned a small income, which she didn't mind because she considered her real full time job as that of taking care of her children and the house. As any caring mother, Juliana was concerned about her children’s nutrition – more so for her youngest who was a toddler in 2010.  It bothered her that quality baby formula was expensive and unavailable. At one point, like other women in her village, she resigned to this fate, until one day when she decided that she had had enough. Juliana embarked on a very ambitious mission: that of making her own baby formula. She scored text books and magazines, reading about recipes and soon enough, she had a game plan. She began taking various dried grains such as millet and sorghum to local grinding mills. Afterwards, she would mix them into proportions that ensured nutritious meal for her child. As time passed, her neighbors noticed her product. Increased interest and demand convinced her to start stocking a few packets in her small tailoring shop. A worker at Juliana Mtenga's factory making a sale By 2012, Juliana had increased her monthly production from 5kgs to 200kgs. And, it seemed that she had hit the ceiling, because up to this point, she had exhausted the market that was in close proximity to her. That, and the fact that she viewed the baby formula business as a side activity, not a main source of income. And then, Juliana met officials from Tanzania Women Chambers...

Context: The Republic of Rwanda acceded to the EAC Treaty on 18th June 2007 and became full Members of the Community with effect from 1st July 2007. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is a central engine to driving Rwanda’s transformation to a knowledge-based economy, a fact Rwanda has acknowledged by allocating a budget to ICT as a percentage of its GDP that is at par with OECD countries. Rwanda continues to be one of the fastest-growing African countries in ICT and there are several avenues for growth for the ICT sector from e-commerce and e-services, mobile technologies, applications development and automation to becoming a regional center for the training of top quality ICT professionals and research as a robust ICT industry can create wealth, jobs and entrepreneurs. Rwanda is the most improved economy worldwide since 2005 (World Bank Doing Business Report, 2014). The report further reflects Rwanda the 2nd easiest to do business in Africa after Mauritius. Business environment reforms focusing on trade facilitation endeavor to reduce the cost associated with importing and exporting products. Many factors affect the cost of trade, including poor infrastructure, slow and cumbersome border regulatory and operating processes and non-tariff measures. Reforms targeted to these factors vary depending on the local contexts and problems yet overall they broadly seek to achieve more efficient, transparent, predictable and rule-based import and export processes. Reforms may include new or upgraded trade-related infrastructure, such as roads, ports and border posts; reviewing and (re)drafting the policies, laws and regulations governing...

David Sanga is a 65 year old resident of the Mbingu Village in the Kilombero District in Tanzania." David Sanga is a 65 year old resident of the Mbingu Village in the Kilombero District in Tanzania. David has been a cocoa farmer for more than ten years. Before Kokoa Kamili (KK) appeared in Mbingu, David sold his cocoa harvest to ‘Mocoa’, an organic cocoa out-growers association. As there was little competition for his produce, prices were determined by Mocoa and were non-negotiable. With little information on real market prices and the additional expense of having to take his produce to ‘buyer’ collection points, his farming business was a subsistence exercise characterized by insecurity and hardship, especially during the dry season when there was little to sell. When Kokoa Kamili begun their project in September 2014 in Mbingu, they introduced a healthy element of competition offering not only significantly higher prices for a better grade of cocoa but a collection service for ‘wet’ cocoa, at no extra charge. This additional service had not been an option before, but it not only simplified the process of getting his cocoa to market, but also significantly reduced his costs and the time spent organizing sales. The Sanga family had also been growing rice, maize and bananas on their small-holding, production having been expanded over the past five years to cover three plots in Mbingu. David also produces a wide range of fruits and vegetables to support the dietary needs of his family. Aside from...

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...

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...

Situated 1,441 kilometres from the commercial capital Dar es Salaam lies a border post called Mutukula between Tanzania and Uganda, near the shores of Lake Victoria. Until very recently electricity was only provided on the Ugandan side, leaving many small businesses on the Tanzanian side literally in the dark. However, things on the Tanzanian side changed with the construction of a One Stop Border Post, which included a ten kilometre stretch of electricity towards Bunazi in Tanzania. Locals have seen this as a huge boost for development in the area including being able to provide electricity to vital services including schools and hospitals. A One Stop Border Post (OSBP) brings together immigration, customs and other government officials from the two countries under one roof, doing away with the need for trucks and persons to undergo clearance twice at both sides of the border. TradeMark Africa partnered with the governments of Tanzania and Uganda to construct a One Stop Border Posts (OSBPs) to ease the movement of people and goods across the borders through reducing time and consequently cost incurred to cross the border. Mashaka Misapa is a barber from Mutukula village on the Tanzanian side. On 28 February 2014, the small border town was transformed when they were connected to the power grid which was being extended to the OSBP. "Before the construction of the OSBP, we had no electricity and we were forced to use a generator which consumed a lot of fuel and increased our costs, said 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...

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...