Nairobi, April 14 -- Sometime in August 2021, Senga, a start-up logistics firm, analysed the troubles for landlocked countries doing export-import business in the region.

Among the problems it found was that goods were taking longer to exit ports and the landlocked countries were completely dependent on the physical and trading infrastructure of transit countries.

Then there were inefficient border crossings, a transport system in the hands of cartels and ever-increasing transport costs.

These were hardly new lamentations as regional blocs such as East African Community had done own surveys and reached similar findings. Three years on, however, both coastal and landlocked countries face higher costs resulting from a disrupted supply ch...