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At the height of Kenya’s former president Daniel arap Moi’s rule, an idea was conceived that Kenya would stop over-reliance on foreign imports especially motor vehicles and instead develop local capacity to the manufacturing of cars. In the idea, Moi set up Nyayo Motor Corporation, a state-backed entity that was granted the task of developing Kenya’s first made car. As fate would have it, the development of Nyayo Pioneer car flopped and the idea was abandoned.

A state-backed ego and poor planning, disregard of engineering, poor funding and poor workmanship are some of the reasons that are blamed for the collapse of President Moi’s pet project.  What has followed over the decades is a dramatic collapse of almost all industries in the country especially those that had state backing. These included the clothing and apparel industries, food and beverage processing companies, as well as engineering projects and left everything into

If there is anything that has put Kenya on the global map, then it is her teas. While the country has been forced to compete with Ethiopia and Uganda for crown coffee, South Africa and Tanzania for game safaris and Rwanda and Nigeria for ICT start-ups, it has easily overcome competition for its black tea.

During the year 2019, a total of 497 million kilograms of tea were exported, 23 million kilograms higher than the 474 million kilograms exported in 2018.  During the period, the tea sector contributed Ksh117 billion exports and Ksh22 billion in local sales towards the country's GDP. Kenyan tea competes with tourism, diaspora remittance and horticulture as the highest foreign exchange earner.

The sector also supports the livelihood of over five million Kenyans with approximately 70% of tea production in the country undertaken by small scale tea farmers.

However, the black gold has been on a

Digital supremacy has not only ended with space-technology and communication, but has made its way towards health. In this case, Tanzanian youth have used ingenuity in domesticating seamless digital solutions and in making sure essential health services are simplified.

It is the youth who are now innovating realistic and customized digital solutions that link pharmaceutical suppliers, manufacturers, importers and retailers in one system, to ensure pharmaceutical services are executed proficiently and in an organized manner.

The health sector in Tanzania, a nation with more than 55 million people,  whose Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 6.8 per cent in the third quarter (according to Bank of Tanzania Quarterly Bulletin), contributed less to the real GDP with only 0.7 per cent, still, its stakeholders strive to develop different spheres of the sector which is crucial for the nation’s welfare.

According to WHO, and UN Comtrade and Business Monitor, Tanzania’s pharmaceutical market…

Education in Tanzania has been gaining crucial technological changes over the past decades. The government of Tanzania has acknowledged the role of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in stimulating effective learning in the modern era, via its frameworks—communicated in the Education and Training Policy of 1995, and the national ICT policy of 2016 that both embody education technology in their own manner.

In this context, Tanzania’s innovation landscape is getting better as more young people take the helm to create solutions. In this case—MyElimu and Mtabe apps, which are customized education technology (platforms) offering seamless learning materials to secondary students across Tanzania via mobile phones are gaining traction.

The communication landscape in Tanzania is growing, and numbers show this growth could turn to be a gold mine for innovative solutions such as MyElimu.

According to information from Tanzania Communication Regulatory Authority (TCRA), internet penetration moved up from 40 per cent in…

Modern technology could be the most pristine breakthrough the human race has ever achieved, as more noble solutions come to light each day proving that—decent forms of labour can be attained if the digital economy wages its fair share of war into the sector, and Tanzania is the exemplary figure in this labour-related case.

Huduma Smart is not an ordinary startup.  It is a young, female-led enterprise that trains domestic workers and provides a job market for them via a tailored website, where employers can recruit workers of their choice per qualifications they desired and acceptability of a worker. More importantly, the startup provides health insurance and contracts to workers, among other necessities, to make their jobs respectable, a global missing recipe in the labour section.

The domestic labour landscape

It has been a custom for most average families and most of the middle-income households to require services from housemaids,…

Modern technology is the new normal; it is the currency for development in the 21st-century landscape, and for Tanzania, this means developing and launching solutions that decipher community problems including getting access to your local professional and proficient electrician, plumber, hairdresser or even IT expert.

In this case, Fundi Popote—a tailored web-based platform simplifies life by giving clients across Tanzania the liberty to book appointments with various sorts of highly-qualified fixers instantly to attend to their electrical, housing, plumbing or even computer-related problems.

Fundi Popote reveals how potential and digital-hungry Tanzania is, hence—the platform innovator, who is a young female ICT-enthusiast, who displays her talents well and shows how the nation of 55 million stands to benefit from community digital solutions.

Getting digital

Information and communications have been growing in Tanzania, as the number of people going online via their mobile phones hit 83 per cent out of 23 million…

For the year 2020, Ethiopia is gearing up to open its first Stock Exchange market in over 45 years. With it, Africa will add one more stock exchange floor under its belt bringing the total number of working bourse on the continent to 30.

Almost half a century ago, back in the 70s, there was vibrant share trading at the National Bank of Ethiopia. That was in fact, one of the first, if not the very first, trading floor on the continent. Well, at least one that was not under colonial rule that is.

Now, some 45 years later after the Derg took down what would have inevitably been Africa’s main stock trading floor, Ethiopia is well on its way to re-establishing the trading floor.

Ethiopia becomes the 30^th of Africa’s 51 countries to establish a stock trading institute under the auspices of the government. For one of the…

Uganda’s delayed oil production could affect economic outlook

https://theexchange.africa/countries/delayed-oil-production-could-affect-economic-outlook-world-bank/

According to the World Bank, Uganda could face serious economic pressures in the immediate future especially with delay in oil production. It has advised that the country would do well to develop its other major sectors – agriculture and industry – as they can guarantee immediate and steady growth outcomes instead of relying heavily mostly on Uganda’s oil production ambitions.

Uganda’s economy must grow faster- World Bank

https://theexchange.africa/countries/ugandas-economy-must-grow-faster-world-bank/

A recent World Bank report, “Uganda: Jobs strategy for inclusive growth” reveals that the country could find itself in a crisis of more workers than jobs unless the economy grows concomitantly.  The report states than an economic transformation is required and Uganda should start with developing commercial agriculture that accounts for about 80 per cent of annual export earnings; the sector employs more than 80 per cent of the workforce in agriculture sector.…

During the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak in West Africa the disease brought the economies of the region to its knees. The overall impact of the Ebola crisis on Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone was estimated by the World Bank to have hit $2.8 billion ($600 million for Guinea, $300 million for Liberia, and $1.9 billion for Sierra Leone). This included the shocks in 2014 and 2015, and 2016 as the economic impact is outlasting the epidemiological impact.

The economies of the region remained in recession for a while and the countries are still showing signs of human capital loss as well as economic stagnation. Liberia lost 8% of its doctors, nurses, and midwives to Ebola. Sierra Leone and Guinea lost 7% and 1% of their healthcare workers, respectively.

The United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany were the top donors to the international Ebola response, donating more than $3.611 billion (US$)

Tanzania has set regional precedence by establishing an atomic energy commission and gone ahead to start construction of a state-of-the-art laboratory designed to manage use of radioactive materials.

In Sub-Sahara Africa, the country is only second to South Africa in this frontier and has already begun the first phase of construction works. Valued at TShs2.5bn (US$1.1mn) the first phase of the lab construction began last year and is designed to meet global operation and calibration standards in atomic and nuclear energy.

It may come as a surprise to you as it did to me to learn of this rather unsettling development; a third world country building an atomic management laboratory to rival world standards. Well, that is the case until you learn that this third world country is also gearing up to start mining uranium.

This explanation is plausible, as we have been predisposed to this reality by Hollywood blockbuster…