East African Business Notifier

  BY PAUL TENTENA The Government of Kenya, together with the African Union Inter-African Bureau for Animal Resources (AU-IBAR) and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), recently launched the Kenya National Inception Meeting under the project Accelerating Food Systems Transformation for Resilience to Climate Change in Africa . The meeting marked the operational start in Kenya of a three-year regional initiative that will also be implemented in Uganda and Somalia from 2026 to 2028. The project seeks to strengthen the resilience of livestock-based food systems to climate change and variability through four interconnected areas of work: livestock value chains, climate/index-based livestock insurance, land tenure security, and climate-land information systems for evidence-based decision-making. “Africa’s persistent hunger, despite its land, livestock, labour and market endowments, is fundamentally a problem of converting existing assets into value, jobs, tra...

  BY PAUL TENTENA How can the Congo Basin, the world ’ s second-largest tropical rainforest, be transformed into a powerful driver of industrialization, value addition and regional economic integration? This is the challenge that needs to be addressed by all stakeholders on the sustainable industrialization of Central Africa's timber value chain . Central Africa is home to one of the world ’ s most significant forest ecosystems. According to the OECD, the Congo Basin accounts for 70 per cent of Africa's tropical rainforest cover and nearly 800,000 square kilometres of protected areas. Yet this exceptional natural capital remains largely underutilized from an industrial perspective. While the subregion supplies 20 per cent of global tropical log exports, it contributes only 1 per cent of global sawn timber production, highlighting limited domestic processing, insufficient value addition and significant untapped potential for industrial employment and competitiveness. T...