December 1, 2015

“The TMEA Trade-a-thon: Take 10 with Trade Experts on Investing in East Africa” at the ICTSD Trade and Development Symposium

Background

TradeMark East Africa (TMEA) is a US$ 560 million Aid for Trade Initiative that was set up to support the EAC Secretariat and EAC Partner States to achieve their ambition of full regional integration. TMEA has been in existence since 2010 but was officially launched in January 2011 and has focused initiatives on the following three key pillars: increasing physical access to markets; enhancing the trade environment; and improving business competitiveness through working with the private sector. TMEA is funded by funded by the United
Kingdom, Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, United States Government, Canada and Finland. TMEA has set up offices in Nairobi (HQ and Kenya Country Programme), Kampala, Dar es Salaam, Arusha, Kigali, Bujumbura and Juba.

The East African Community has grown to be the most advanced Regional Economic Community in Africa. Progress to date has included establishment of the Customs Union and Common Market Protocol which has led to the development of a fully functioning Free Trade Area with ambitions to link this to the COMESA and SADC Free Trade Areas.

Over the last few years, TMEA has spearheaded trade facilitation initiatives for the region, working on initiatives such as increasing port efficiency; improving hard and soft infrastructure at border crossings and customs management; harmonisation of product standards; transport and logistics innovation and supporting private sector capacity and input into the EAC regional integration process. These support programmes have since delivered huge benefits to the East African community through lowering trade costs, increasing intra-regional trade and vastly increasing efficiency along the transport arteries in East Africa.

TMEA now seeks to deploy its pool of expertise to engage in a speed networking session with key stakeholders who will be participating at the Trade and Development Symposium, taking place on the side lines of the 10th WTO Ministerial Conference.

Objective(s)

The overall objective will be to create a networking opportunity on various aspects of EAC regional integration. Specific objectives include:

  1. Showcasing various projects and their contribution to the regional integration agenda
  2. Providing a platform for participants to learn about the progress of the EAC regional integration agenda, understand trade facilitation initiatives, and increase awareness of key investment opportunities

Outputs

The expected outputs of the speed dating type event will be a report with action points for TMEA/ICTSD and other stakeholders

Approach and Methodology

TMEA will convene key trade facilitation experts, policy makers and business leaders to create a ‘’speed dating’’ environment where experts on various aspects of regional integration e.g. trade facilitation, infrastructure, gender, transport and logistics etc. will be positioned at various stations with various displays showcasing their projects and their contribution to the regional integration agenda. The TMEA Speed Dating side session will feature the following:

1. 10 minute presentations by experts on various aspects of regional integration who will be placed in themed station areas

2. 10 min Q&A

3. At the end of each 20 minute session, the participants will move to their next area of interest and the same process will recommence

Topics

TMEA has pooled together experts on various aspects of regional integration who will make presentations on their areas of expertise. The following topics will be discussed:

  1. Logistics: TMEA will be represented by the internal Trade and Logistics Expert, Abhishek Sharma who will be joined by John Kalibo, Cluster Trade & Marketing Manager for East Africa.
  2. Infrastructure: TMEA will be represented by the internal expert on Infrastructure, George Wolf who will be joined by Eng. Julius Riungu from Tsavo Power Company, a private power generation company based in Kenya and a representative form TMEAs largest infrastructure partner – KPA.
  3. Investment Climate/Business Environment: TMEA will be represented by the internal expert on Business environment, Waturi Matu who will be joined by Carole Kariuki from KEPSA.
  4. ICT4Trade: TMEA will be represented by the internal expert on ICT for Trade platforms and automation systems, Alban Odhiambo who will be joined by George Muraguri from the Kenya Revenue Authority and Edward Ichungwa – an independent consultant and former Director ICT for Trade at TMEA.
  5. Trade Facilitation: TMEA will be represented by the internal regional Trade Facilitation experts, Eugene Torero who will be joined by Jennifer Mwijukye, CEO of the Unifreight Group of Companies in Uganda and also one of the Authorised Economic Operators in Uganda.

Specifically, this session will be targeting investors present at the Trade and Development Symposium and will seek to educate them about the different investment opportunities within the EAC region as well as constraints on the different topics highlighted above. Further, the experts will also talk about on-going and planned initiatives that seek to address the constraints as well as initiatives that seek to crowd in investments in to the region.

Targeted Participants

The participants will be drawn from, but not limited to: participants of the TDS and TMEA partners – including government officials and private sector partners; policy makers etc.

Coordination

The main organisers will be TMEA and ICTSD. Coordination for this event will be allocated as follows:

TMEA

  1. Convene and prepare experts
  2. Convene participants
  3. Provide logistical support including session materials/displays, set up
  4. Staff back up
  5. Communications support

ICTSD

  1. Convene participants
  2. Provide venue and associated equipment
  3. Staff back up

Duration

This session is expected to take place during the TDS and will last a maximum of two hours for the speed dating and plenary session

TMEA Contacts

  1. Lisa Karanja, Senior Director Business Competitiveness – lisa.karanja@trademarkea.com
  2. Allan Ngugi, Programme Manager Business Competitiveness – allan.ngugi@trademarkea.com
  3. Julia Lipowiecka, Consultant with Saana Consulting Ltd – julia@saana.com