Kenya has launched two digital trade platforms that seek to transform African embassies into active drivers of cross-border commerce under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
While the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) has established the legal and policy foundation for a single African market, the practical mechanisms for converting opportunities into contracts remain underdeveloped. Diplomatic missions, which already provide consular services, logistics coordination, and citizen protection, are now being repositioned as hubs for trade execution.
The platforms, BiasharaLink and Deal House, hope to take advantage of the opportunity.
BiasharaLink will serve as a digital pipeline for capturing, structuring, and tracking trade and investment opportunities across diplomatic missions, exporters, and investors. It is expected to formalize opportunity management, ensuring potential deals are documented and followed through systematically.
From The Reporter Magazine
Deal House will function as the transaction layer, supporting validation, partner matching, financing linkages, and progression of deals toward closure.
Kenya, AfCFTA Secretariat, Equity Group Holdings Plc, Real Sources Africa (RSA), and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, are among the partners involved in developing and rolling out the platforms. RSA is a tech-enabled trade facilitation and market access company, recognized as Kenya’s official AfCFTA National Trading Company.
According to the developers, African embassies collectively receive more than 3,500 trade enquiries monthly, yet fewer than one percent translate into completed transactions.
From The Reporter Magazine
BiasharaLink is expected to allow diplomatic missions, exporters, investors and market actors to formally capture, structure and track trade and investment opportunities aligned with AfCFTA priorities.
Deal House will serve as the execution engine, validating opportunities, matching them with credible counterparties, connecting them to financing and moving them toward contract signing.
Heads and CEOs of these partners, including AfCFTA secretariat officials, and Kenyan officials, were present when BiasharaLink and Deal House platforms launched in Addis Ababa this week.
The launch came on the margins of the African Union Summit and marked a shift in how diplomatic missions support economic activity and trade facilitation.
Speaking at the launch, Kenya’s Prime Cabinet Secretary and Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Musalia Mudavadi described the platforms as a new model of economic diplomacy.
“BiasharaLink and Deal House represent a new model of economic diplomacy — one that is results-oriented. It provides a common platform for capturing and organizing opportunities. It connects opportunity to execution. Together, the platforms turn diplomacy into delivery,” he said.
AfCFTA Secretary-General Wamkele Mene noted that as global supply chains face disruptions and rising protectionism, Africa must deepen its internal market.
He said the continent has no alternative but to build a strong domestic market anchored on effective trade systems.
The initiative also places an emphasis on empowering small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and women-led businesses by giving them structured access to cross-border opportunities and financing mechanisms.
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