Raye Nyerere 
At a Nairobi packhouse in Murang’a, a cold-chain manager checks the temperature log on a crate of Hass avocados bound for a market Kenya has never shipped to directly. For years, “export” meant Rotterdam, Dubai, or, more recently, Shanghai. It never meant Kingston. That changed on July 13, 2026, when Kenya’s first-ever resident High Commissioner, … Read more
At Abossey Okai, Accra’s spare parts district, a trader unpacks a container that left Guangzhou six weeks earlier: brake pads, filters, bearings, wiring harnesses, enough stock to supply a dozen mechanics for a month. He priced the deal off his supplier’s invoice. He is about to learn that invoice was never the real number. Importing … Read more
At Wakulima Market in Nairobi, a tomato trader watches roughly a third of her crates lose value before she can sell them, not because buyers aren’t there, but because the tomatoes were never cooled after harvest. This is not a personal failure. It is the default outcome of farming without storage infrastructure across most of … Read more
In Kitui County, in Kenya’s semi-arid east, farmers used to plant maize in the second week of March, once the long rains reliably arrived. This year, forecasters are cautioning southeastern lowland farmers like these that the rains may start on time but cut off abruptly, a pattern that is becoming the rule rather than the … Read more
A maize farmer outside Nakuru priced her season in January using last year’s fertilizer numbers. By the time she was ready to buy in April, DAP had moved so far past her budget that she cut her planted acreage rather than borrow to cover the gap. She isn’t alone, and she isn’t wrong to be … Read more
The cedi depreciation 2026 story is stranger than most headlines make it sound. Ghana’s economy grew 6.4% in the first quarter. Inflation eased to 4.6% in July, down from 5.3% in June. Private sector credit surged 41.2%, more than four times faster than a year earlier. By almost every conventional measure, the economy looks stronger … Read more
In a fabric stall off Kingston’s Coronation Market, a trader who has spent a decade importing kente and adinkra cloth from Accra watched President John Dramani Mahama’s motorcade roll past on the evening news. She has no direct way to pay her Ghanaian supplier without routing through three separate services and losing money at every … Read more
Street Food Businesses You Can Start in West Africa By 7 PM on any given weekday, the junctions across Lagos mainland are cloaked in the distinct, spicy smoke of the suya spot. A vendor stands over a long metal grill, rotating skewered beef over hot coals and dusting it with yaji (suya spice) for customers … Read more
5 Street Food Businesses You Can Start in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania By 6pm on any weekday, the corner outside Nairobi’s Kencom bus stage fills with a queue that has nothing to do with matatus. It is the smokie pasua vendor, a metal display box glowing under a bare bulb, splitting open smoked sausages and … Read more
How to Schedule Meetings Across Time Zones It is 8am in Toronto, which sounded perfectly reasonable when you sent the invite. Then the replies start. Your operations lead in Nairobi is asking why the call is at 3pm on a Saturday. Your supplier contact in Lagos never opened the invite at all, because in his … Read more