At up to $4 per kg, air is extremely expensive. The stoves each weigh roughly 5kg and would cost about $20 each to fly: more than half the price of some of their stoves.

Shipping by land is often the most cost effective option, but proves difficult in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) due to its dense forest regions and unpredictable politics. So far, they have succeeded by employing the services of middle men or shipping by boat.

“We have had to ship to Congo many times by sea around the Southern coast of Africa” says Mohammed, a voyage that could last up to 3 weeks. In rare occasions they have tried shipping by small boats, but these offer no insurance and are highly unpredictable. These distribution challenges impact how fast BURN can deliver to their customers in foreign markets and limits their plans for expansion; a supply chain is only as strong as its certainties.

The Way Forward

These four companies are very different. Risha was founded and run on a small scale out of a makerspace; Lumkani has used a combination of crowdfunding and grants; Tranos serves local businesses as a contract manufacturer; BURN ships overseas at a large volume. Each faces similar supply chain challenges, and has made sacrifices in an effort to produce exportable technology and grow a sustainable business.

For these companies, reducing their supply chain woes would greatly improve their operations. With an improved clearing process and more efficient ports, BURN would be able to predict their sales closer to the time of sale and maintain a smaller inventory. With a more informed customs force, Risha can source diodes to produce laser cutters on a schedule. Tranos would get their new products to market faster and ship their tools faster enabled by smoother freight forwarding. While with enough stock on their hands, Lumkani would deliver bulk orders more confidently.

For makers developing new product concepts, improving their access to components will reduce their development time. But the actions required to achieve these objectives are not clear cut.

An EY report from 2014 (PDF) prescribes a number of opportunities worth exploring. Chief among them is to improve the shipping network, integrating road and sea freight, especially within regional entities. None of the startups I interviewed for this article sourced materials from other countries within the continent. Instead, when they couldn’t find in their locale, they went outside the continent. Improving the road networks within countries, along with more open borders, will accelerate the movement of goods within Africa.

That said, most materials will continue to be shipped from outside markets - especially from Asia. To improve lead times, more distributors (with consistent stock of commonly used parts) need to be present across the different regions of Africa. While it seems intuitive that where there is demand there should be supply, the lack of distributors is due to the fact that many hardware developers work in silos, often with no informal network. Without such networks, would-be distributors have no insight about the local demand. In addition, the high exchange rates of local currencies to the dollar affects the ability of entrepreneurs to order parts they need.

For companies like Risha and Lumkani it’s possible that makerspaces could act as a distributor, providing tools and components for product developers to work with. Some of these already exist in Kenya and Ghana. Gearbox (Kenya) provides industrial tools and training for hardware entrepreneurship in a flexible working space, as does Kumasi Hive (Ghana). These spaces regularly order parts from overseas so that their members always have the tools to work.

Bigger companies, like BURN, could work with the fledgling e-commerce startups by offering their products to be sold and distributed on these platforms. With these platforms they could forecast their sales better and even outsource delivery, saving the cost that they bear and reducing the uncertainty of shipping. Better forecasts inform slimmer inventory, bringing their manufacturing to a just-in-time process.

The biggest opportunity lies with policy. Simplifying duties and clearing procedures at the ports would greatly improve the supply chain, and pairing these with a technology development policy would be a double win. Some of the options of such policy could be:

Relax duties and import tariffs on electronic components, especially when an industry that uses such components is budding. Unfortunately, current trends don’t point in this direction: eight months ago, the Nigerian government increased the tariffs on solar panels by 100%. Such moves hamper the development on renewable technology products — a growing industry in the country.

Allow tax relief for a number of years to companies beginning technology export. This will create an incentive for entrepreneurs to develop products for export, especially in countries that have cheap access to raw materials.

Open regional trade areas and enforce the rules. The continent is big enough to trade within itself, but the gatekeepers need to keep the gates open for the markets to dictate the price and direction. The Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) agreement aims to achieve this, but member nations have been known to undermine such agreements in the past.

These steps require a refocus with governments looking to the future instead. The continent produces 11 million youths who join the workforce every year. As such, governments look for Foreign Direct Investment from multinationals in the FMCG and construction industries who can provide this.

This model is not sustainable as the jobs created are not highly skilled and labour costs could always increase; essentially, governments are focusing on easy solutions and ignoring the long term benefits that other options might offer. By formulating policies around technology export and providing an enabling environment for product development, these hardware startups will eventually create jobs, improve the talent pipeline, and grow the countries’ GDP.