The disruption of Red Sea shipping since 2024 has produced second- and third-order effects across East African economies that are still working through the system. Freight rates, insurance premia, port dwell times and route reliability have all shifted — and none of them have fully recovered.
How the disruption reaches East Africa
East African importers and exporters depend on the Bab el-Mandeb corridor for a substantial share of finished goods, industrial inputs and container capacity. Reduced transit volumes and Cape rerouting have added weeks to lead times and materially increased landed cost on categories from construction materials to consumer goods.
Ports under pressure
- Mombasa has absorbed rerouted volume unevenly, with dwell times and yard congestion above baseline.
- Dar es Salaam has picked up displaced cargo, benefiting from central-corridor connectivity.
- Djibouti's transhipment role has been reshaped by both military traffic and altered commercial flows.
- Berbera continues to grow, but capacity ceilings limit its ability to absorb sustained diverted volume.
A shipping crisis in the Red Sea is a working-capital crisis in Nairobi.
What organisations should do
Organisations reliant on East African supply chains should stress-test inventory strategies, revisit hedging on freight and FX exposure, and re-baseline lead-time assumptions across procurement. The disruption has moved from an acute shock to a structural condition — planning that treats it as temporary will keep producing surprises.