Stories

The IIDEA project carried out by Base for Education Dissemination (BED) collects and documents experiences and success stories of women in cross-border trade in the Mara region of Tanzania and Migori in Kenya with a view to encouraging more women to recognise the competitive advantage of regional trade opportunities and become involved. “We are very thankful for the project for providing us with a platform of making our voices and wishes kn...

Enhancing Women’s Participation in Uganda and Kenya The grain sector is probably the most important sub-sector within the agricultural sector. Maize, wheat, rice and pulses are by far the most important food commodities in East Africa. Production of these food staples varies greatly from country to country, creating natural opportunities for trade between East African countries based on comparative advantages and climatic conditions for crop...

USAGA’s project ‘EAC Youth Tour Guides Network’ is about linking young aspiring tourist guides in Kenya and Uganda through an online portal to professional guides and associations, with the aim of enhancing their skills and ensuring a sustainable tourism sector in the future. One of the key outputs is helping guides to create touristic itineraries which can be marketed across the region. Women, who historically have not been well represente...

WITU developed www.amaduka.com, an online marketplace for women-owned micro and small businesses across East Africa, starting with Uganda and Kenya. With this innovative online market place, WITU has taken up the challenge of making the Fourth Industrial Revolution work for women in business. Many of them are left behind by this fundamental change, in which the physical and digital worlds are merging. They are still limited to brick-and mortar-sh...

Much delayed by the restrictions to the movement of people through the COVID19 pandemic, BAHO International’s project has now taken off to develop and test an online portal for health services across the borders of Rwanda and Tanzania. The IT experts, having been assigned office space at the hospital, started on the development of the planned application that lists partnering heath care facilities, doctors and their services and speciali...

The East African Community together with the Arusha City Council and the International Women’s Day Committee conducted a sensitization event at Maweni Primary and Mkonoo Secondary Schools in Terat Ward, Arusha, Tanzania on 24th July 2020. The community service event, which was originally meant to take place as part of the celebration of the International Women’s Day 2020 - themed “#EachforEqual” - in March 2020, could not take place du...

The African continent is experiencing a massive shift towards digital technologies and is radically transforming several sectors of the economies of its 55 countries, thereby directly impacting trade and global supply chains that link the continent. According to a 2018 study commissioned by the World Bank titled Leveraging ICT Technologies in Closing the Gender Gap, digital technologies have an enormous potential of empowering women socially and ...

IIDEA partner EANNASO (Eastern Africa National Networks of AIDS and Health Service Organizations) launched the East Africa Afya Health Digital platform on 29th June, 2020. The launch was attended by almost 130 participants, including the relevant health organisations in the region, civil society organisations and the Media.Afya is an online digital platform mapping health service centers along EAC borders. Residents and travelers can easily v...

The apex bodies of the private sector and civil society organizations met virtually on 29th May 2020 through MS TEAMS. The half-day meeting was attended by representatives of the East African Civil Society Organizations Forum(EACSOF), the East Africa Law Society (EALS), the East African Local Government Association (EALGA) and the East African Health Platform (EAHP) and chaired by Mrs Martha Makenge, Ag. Executive Director of EACSOF. Besides disc...

The serene agricultural town of Babati, located 160 kilometers South West of Tanzania’s Arusha city, is home to a group of young farmers under the name “Shambani Solutions”,who are  producing green beans for export. In early 2018, Shambani Solutions partnered with Kenyan based horticultural exporter Frigoken limited, to directly employ 2,200 young men and women through contractual farming, producing over 30...