The East African Legislative Assembly sitting in Kigali for the fifth session of the Third Assembly from March 6-16, used the International Women’s Day marked on March 8, to pass a Bill that will among other things protect women and children against gender-based violence, force EAC partner states to provide free primary and secondary school education for all, and protect the rights of civilians during war. “There is a need to make primary and secondary education compulsory, accessible, all inclusive and available for free to all considering the pupil-teacher ratios,” said the chairperson of the committee on general purposes Dr Odette Nyiramilimo. The general purpose committee handled consultations on the Bill with the partner states. If the region’s presidents assent to it, their governments will be required to provide universal free primary and secondary education. Most EAC partner states are already implementing a form of free primary education. The law will also make EAC partner states more accountable for the deaths and plunder that governments through their armed forces mete out when there is internal conflict. Human rights abuses “In circumstances where conflicts have occurred, and in times of armed and other conflicts, partner states must take such steps as are necessary to prevent and eliminate incidents of human rights abuses,” reads the Bill. This Bill will affect countries where security forces have orders to shoot and kill civilians. Civil society organisations are excited that the region can now take to task South Sudan and Burundi, where recent conflicts have...

Danish shipping giant Maersk is set to implement a new supply chain management technology that was partly developed by the IBM Research lab in East Africa. Maersk and IBM last week said they would begin using blockchain technology to manage and truck paper trail of shipping containers as they crisscross the oceans. Blockchain is best known as the technology that underpins the world’s most successful cryptocurrency, Bitcoin. The simplest way to understand blockchain is to view it as the next iteration of that mainstay of bookkeeping— the ledger. Blockchain digitises the ledger. It also distributes it. This means that a single data entry on the ledger is simultaneously stored in thousands, if not millions, of computers in a specific network. Due to the distributed nature of information storage, blockchain has particularly been touted as a technology that will increase transparency and reduce corruption in various transactions. Recently, companies in the logistics and financial sectors have been exploring the use of blockchain for applications beyond cryptocurrencies. “The solution is designed to help reduce fraud and errors, reduce time products spend in the transit and shipping process, improve inventory management and ultimately reduce waste and cost,” said IBM in a statement. The blockchain supply management system will be accessible to a network of shippers, freight forwarders, ocean carriers, and customs authorities dealing with Maersk cargo. IBM says that each participant in the supply chain will be able to view the progress of goods in real time. Once data is entered into the...

On July 1, the East African Community will be marking 12 years of the implementation of the Customs Union Protocol. This Protocol, the first pillar of EAC integration, is defined under Article 75 of the Treaty establishing the EAC. It came into effect in 2005 having been signed by the three East African Heads of State on March 2, 2004 in Arusha, Tanzania. The Republic of Rwanda and Burundi joined the Customs Union in 2008 and started applying its instruments in July 2009. In the theory of economic integration, a Customs Union is supposed to be the third stage after a Preferential Trade Area and a Free Trade Area. However, the 1999 Treaty establishing the EAC provides that a Custom Union shall be the first stage in the process of economic integration. This is basically because even before the signing of the treaty, there were strong partnerships already between Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. For instance on November 30, 1993 the trio had signed the Agreement for the Establishment of the Permanent Tripartite Commission for East African Co-operation. The Custom Union has allowed East Africa to operate as a free trade area where partner states have reduced or eliminated taxes on goods originating from within the community and have a Common External Tariff (CET) on goods imported from other countries. For the last 12 years, the CET has been based on three bands of 25 per cent for finished goods, 10 per cent for intermediate goods and 0 per cent for...

Kenya has delayed the planned April 3 rollout of an electronic passport to allow other East African Community (EAC) member countries to simultaneously launch the document in September. In a statement, Immigration Department Director Gordon Kihalangwa yesterday said Kenya and its EAC partners, Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan, Rwanda and Burundi will jointly launch the EAC e-passports on September 1. He had earlier indicated that Kenya was ready to launch e-passports on April 3 after having trained its staff and acquired the necessary e-passport machinery for the rollout at its Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa offices. The new e-passports will have a computer chip-embedded on one of the pages where a holder’s biometric information will be captured in a tamper-proof document. Only e-passport machine-readers owned by immigration departments across the world will access the read-only information. Besides the security features, e-passport holders’ travel itinerary will be automatically updated at every airport or border point they pass through in real time through the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) online portal. The ICAO management system integrates all e-passport information into its global public key directory, making it impossible for anyone to use a stolen passport or forge one for use in inter-country travel. Roll-out of the e-passports with a 10- year validity period will see the paper-based (analogue) passports gradually phased out with East African countries, joining another 60 other countries across the world that use e-passports. The decision to launch an EAC e-passport started in 2004 when the Council of Ministers sanctioned formation...

Efforts aimed at deepening trade among African countries have been boosted by the launch of a new trade facilitation tool. Launched yesterday, the One-Stop Border Post Sourcebook is tipped to help governments improve cross-border and intra-regional trade across Africa and enhance the continent’s competitiveness. Dr Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) chief executive officer, said the trade facilitation tool seeks to promote a co-ordinated and integrated approach towards easing trade, the movement of people, and consolidating security. Mayaki said: “One-stop border posts (OSBPs) are crucial in facilitating trade on the continent because they remove the need for travellers and goods to stop twice to undertake border crossing formalities. “It also calls for the application of joint controls to minimise routine activities and duplication.” “Therefore, it is envisaged that the OSBP project will help reduce the cost and time transporters take to ferry goods across borders,” he added. Mayaki was speaking at a regional domestication workshop for the OSBP sourcebook yesterday. The workshop, which started yesterday, ends on March 16. He said NEPAD is committed to supporting initiatives that promote trade on the continent, urging governments to and key stakeholders to fully utilise the sourcebook to help them determine the best way to develop OSBPs in each region. The development of the second edition of the sourcebook was supported by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), NEPAD, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), East African Community (EAC), and the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)....

Needless charges and regulations as well as closed skies are bottlenecks to cross-border business in East Africa, a lobby has said. The East African Business Council (EABC) now wants the regional parliament to fast-track the removal of these barriers to boost trade. The council executive director Lilian Awinja said the slow pace of opening up the borders exposes local traders and professionals to cutthroat competition from importers and consultants servicing individual markets directly. “The private sector is concerned that despite the commitments of the EAC partner States at the international level as evidenced by concerted efforts to integrate East Africa into a single market, domestic air transport remains over-protected, thus translating into less accessible and unaffordable for potential local users,” she said in a statement. Commuter air services within the East Africa Community comprising Kenya, South Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda, face hurdles as some routes remain unserved. Most travellers from one country to another have to fly to Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport to catch a connecting flight. For example, East Africa Legislative Assembly Speaker Daniel Kidega’s endured a 10-hour flight from Arusha in Tanzania to Kigali in Rwanda. “As I came here from my home in Arusha, I took a flight to Zanzibar, then to Nairobi, from there to Bujumbura and then on to Kigali. It took me close to 10 hours from Arusha to Kigali. That is an unacceptable way to do business,” he said. Reciprocal flights Ms Awinja said despite Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and South...

Le 23 février 2017, la 21ème réunion du Comité National de Pilotage du Programme de TradeMark Africa Burundi ( National Oversight Comittee : NOC ) s’est tenue à Rumonge. A 12 heures 30 minutes, les participants sont sortis de la salle de l’hôtel Tanganyika Blue Bay Resort où se tenait la réunion. Ils sont allés rejoindre à la plage un groupe de femmes qui dansaient en exposant des échantillons des produits qu’elles commercialisent. Celles-ci étaient des membres de l’Association des Femmes Entrepreneurs du Burundi (AFAB). D’un coup, le directeur a.i de TradeMark Africa (TMA) Burundi et la présidente de l’AFAB apposent leurs signatures sur un document. Celle-ci nous en fait le point. « AFAB et TMA viennent de signer un mémorandum d’entente sur un fonds de 200 mille USD que la première va gérer », précise Claudette Ngendandumwe, présidente de l’AFAB. Elle indique que ce fonds est une sorte de projet pilote appelé « Femme dans le commerce » qui s’exécutera à l’intérieur du pays avec un accent particulier sur le commerce transfrontalier. Quid des grandes activités ? Claudette Ngendandumwe informe que le projet s’accomplira sous quatre volets, à savoir : un volet sur les études. Celui-ci, selon elle, concerne les enquêtes afin d’avoir les données exactes sur la situation actuelle de la femme dans le commerce, les difficultés rencontrées, les soucis, connaître le nombre de femmes engagées dans l’entrepreneuriat, les secteurs dans lesquels les femmes opèrent…Le deuxième volet, d’après Mme Ngendandumwe, est celui de la programmation. Elle fait remarquer que le troisième volet vise la formation...

The Gender Equality and Development Act was passed by East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) on Women’s Day. The law aims to advance gender equality and equity among EAC member states in economic, political, socio-economic and cultural aspects. PIC:Christine Mbonyingingo (middle) and Commissioner Ministry of East African Community, Ronah Serwadda (right) looks on during a press conference at the East African Sub- regional support Initiative, (EASSI) on 10/3/17. PHOTO BY JULIET KASIRYE Women organizations in East Africa have asked regional heads of state to ratify a new law that seeks to provide guarantees for gender equality and protection of women from all forms of violence. The Gender Equality and Development Act was passed by East African Legislative Assembly (EALA) on Women’s Day. The law aims to advance gender equality and equity among EAC member states in economic, political, socio-economic and cultural aspects. The Act mandates member states to uphold the right of every woman and man to life, personal dignity and integrity, and security of a person at all levels in their public and private lives. Women organisations through their umbrella body, the East Africa Sub Regional Support Initiative, (EASSI), at a press briefing on Friday, implored the heads of state of the five EAC states to assent to the new law to protect women. “Although the Act was passed, if it is not domesticated by Uganda and the member states-Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya, Burundi and South Sudan, it will not help us,” Marren Akatsa, the EASSI executive director said. According to...

The East African Community (EAC) is, at last, seeing light at the end of the tunnel after a long era of gender angst. But achieving gender equality will be an uphill task as old habits die hard. However, a recent endorsement of the Gender Equality and Development Bill, 2016 by the East African Legislative Assembly last week to improve the rights of women and girls is encouraging. We urge EAC heads of state to assent to the document for the bloc to reach gender equality, protection and development. The envisaged law stipulates the right of a child to quality education and can address other issues such as land rights, marginalised groups and gender-based violence. Indeed, forced marriage has been the nemesis of girls, condemning them to illiteracy, poverty and servitude. Teenage marriage and female genital mutilation are not only anachronistic, but also used as tools of female subjugation. That runs counter Article 6 of the EAC Treaty, which strongly opposes discrimination against any person on grounds of sex or gender. EAC governments will have to review marriage and inheritance pieces of legislation that are repressive to women and increase their representation in decision-making bodies. Last year, Tanzania's High Court ruled that sections 13 and 17 of the Law of Marriage Act, 1971, which allow a girl aged below 18, to marry were unconstitutional. That came after Children's Rights Organisation director Rebecca Gyumi filed a petition to strike out all provisions in the Law of Marriage Act, 1971, which allow a...

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania (Xinhua) -- Tanzanian President John Magufuli on Thursday appealed to the United Nations to continue its support in bringing about peace and political stability in Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo). Magufuli made the appeal to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres when he made a stopover on his way from Kenya to New York, the headquarters of the UN. The president said the recent instability in the two countries has created refugees’ influx in Tanzania and its neighbors, calling for the need to restore political stability. The message to the UN chief was delivered by the east African nation’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Augustine Mahiga. Mahiga said as the chair the East African Community (EAC), Tanzania was hopeful with the progress made in the mediation process in Burundi under the leadership of President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and facilitated by former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa. Mahiga also told Guterres that the forthcoming EAC Summit was expected to receive a progress report on the mediation process. With regards to the DR Congo, Mahiga revealed that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) was intending to include the agenda of political transition in DR Congo, whereby SADC member states were expecting positive deliberations. Tanzania is the current chair of the SADC organ of political, defense and security with the mandate to support the achievement and maintenance of peace and security as well as the rule of law in the SADC region. For his part, Guterres praised Tanzania...