EAC unveils insignia for media blitz as it comes of age
The eight-month-long campaign aims at increasing visibility of the people-centred integration agenda at grassroots.
TUESDAY November 5, 2024
By Patty Magubira
The Tranquility News Reporter, Tanzania
The East African Community (EAC) has launched its unique logo to identify its 25th anniversary and to brand the bloc through an intensive conversional social media campaign it has embarked on.
The EAC Secretariat says the bloc has resolved to dedicate the silver jubilee festivities to sensitising ordinary East Africans on milestones it registered and their impacts to lives of the people.
The fastest regional economic community in Africa has actually achieved progressive results through various policy initiatives, including in infrastructure, industrialisation, healthcare, common external tariffs, and common higher education area, to mention but a few.
The EAC Heads of State Summit has consistently been highlighting the need for the community to raise visibility of its policies, programmes and projects, and to engage ordinary East Africans in the benefits.
The EAC Secretary General, Ms Veronica Nduva, says the media hype around the people-centred integration aims at unpacking the agenda to key players, mostly at grassroots levels, as stipulated in Article 7 of the EAC Treaty.
East Africans are true owners of the integration agenda,” Ms Veronica Nduva, the East African Community Secretary General.
“East Africans are true owners of the integration agenda,” Ms Nduva tells media practitioners shortly before she unveiled the unique identifier in presence of the president of the East African Court of Justice (EACJ), Justice Nestor Kayobera, at the headquarters of the bloc in Arusha, Tanzania.
Partner states’ ministries responsible for EAC Affairs, the EAC Secretariat, the EACJ, the East African Legislative Assembly, and all institutions of the bloc will use the unique identifier along with the EAC emblem throughout the media hype period.
Themed EAC at 25: Promoting Trade, Sustainable Development, Peace and Security for Improved Livelihoods, the silver jubilee celebrations will culminate on November 30, 2024, when Heads of State are scheduled to meet for their 24th Ordinary Summit.
A hive of activities will, however, continue decorating what Ms Nduva terms as “two and a half decades of steady growth and expansion of the bloc” until June 30, 2025.
Undeniably, the community has enlarged from three founding partner states of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda to eight, making its geopolitical ecosystem, nonetheless, even more fragile, given some partner states’s failure to speak with one voice.
As a result, the revived bloc has seen its Common Market Protocol stretched from the Indian to the Atlantic oceans lately, raising opportunities to its private sector – the sole engine of economic growth which the market-driven EAC Treaty banks on.
The Customs Union Protocol transformed into a single customs territory during the period, with efforts to promote local industries raising the common external tariff to 35 per cent.
The EAC intra-regional trade is also on upward trajectory, standing at $10.17 billion by September 2022.
Trade accounting for import and export among seven partner states grew from 13 per cent in 2029 to 15 per cent in 2021. “We’ve also witnessed intra-trade to the global trade growing,” says Ms Nduva.
The bloc is projected to establish its single currency come 2031 for it to have seamless trade and transactions across partner states’ borders.
The process of establishing a monetary institute and three other institutions as envisaged in the Monetary Union Protocol is in progress.
A committee of experts is drafting the constitution of the EAC Political Confederation, with national consultations already concluded in Burundi, Uganda and Kenya.
“Trade is a driving force of integration and will work better when the bloc has common political aspirations and arrangements,” says Ms Nduva, as she pleads with the mainstream media to consider jumping on the media hype bandwagon.
Justice Kayobera recalls, in turn, that the community is two years older that the court whose inception dates back to November 2001.
“We are grateful for this event,” says the EACJ president as he thanks Ms Nduva for roping in the court in the anniversary celebrations and campaign.
The EACJ is slowly but surely gaining its footprint, observes Justice Kayobera, hinting that the court would move to Kigali, Rwanda, in February 2025, as part of its efforts to intensify its visibility.
EAC was in Bujumbura, Burundi, in 2021, and spent 30 days in Kampala, Uganda, in 2022 on its rotational judicial conferences and sessionsΩ
MORE INFORMATION: EAC Genesis
The EAC traces its origins back to the early 20thcentury, when Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika (now Tanzania) formed cooperative ties through shared services such as the establishment of the East African Currency Board in 1905 and the East African Railways and Harbours in 1948. In 1967, shortly after these countries gained independence, they officially established the EAC as an intergovernmental organisation aimed at fostering economic cooperation and integration across East Africa. The first EAC signifies one of the earliest attempts at regional integration in Africa. However, differing political and economic policies among the partner states led to the dissolution of the initial EAC in 1977, marking a setback for regional unity.
However, the united East Africa vision remained alive, and in the late 1990s, the leadership of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania resumed talks, leading to the signing of a new EAC Treaty on November 30, 1999. This treaty took effect in July 2000, formally re-establishing the EAC. Since its revival, the EAC has grown significantly in both membership and scope. Rwanda and Burundi joined in 2007, South Sudan acceded in 2016, the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2022, and most recently, the Federal Republic of Somalia in 2024. Spanning 5.4 million square kilometres, the EAC region is home to an estimated 302.2 million people, with over 30 per cent residing in urban centres. Collectively, the EAC boasts a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of approximately $312.9 billion, underscoring its significant strategic and geopolitical potential as an economic and political force on the continent. The EAC integration agenda is strategically anchored on four fundamental pillars, namely the Customs Union, Common Market, Monetary Union, and Political Federation. Each pillar builds progressively upon the other, establishing a comprehensive framework for regional unity and collaborationΩ
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The Tranquility News Reporter/Sub Editor, Tanzania
Patty Magubira is an experienced environmental and business editor whose career started at the Tanzania's state-owned newspaper - The Daily News. He is a man of perfection. Aided by his extensive training as a community forestry expert before joining Tanzania School of Journalism. Magubira had successfully held various key posts in newsrooms, giving him an unmatched connections in media fraternity. Having worked as a bureau chief in Arusha and Mwanza, he managed to build a team work, boosting sales to the highest level ever. He was then promoted to a sub-editor after completing a training in Nairobi, Kenya. His incredible experience, critical thinking and exposure are critical to the quality of any media outlet.
