Ambassador Mfumukeko made the remarks yesterday when he received credentials from the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Finland to Tanzania, Riitta Swan, to also serve as Ambassador to the EAC. He welcomed the continued support from Finland saying it had enabled the cto achieve its ambitious agenda. Mfumukeko also shared the steady progress made by the community in promoting integration through the four pillars as set out in the EAC Treaty, namely the: Customs Union, Common Market, Monetary Union and Political Federation, adding that the achievements attained so far were due to political goodwill among the EAC Heads of State. Speaking at the function, Ambassador Swan said that her appointment was part of her government’s commitment to deepen its cooperation with the EAC, noting the significance of regional integration not only for East Africans, but as an important source of growth for the continent as well. The Finnish envoy noted that there was a growing interest and knowledge about the EAC. She said that Finland views the trading bloc as an important partner especially in efforts aimed at ensuring peace and security in the region. She expressed her country's interest towards supporting integration agenda particularly in areas such as peace and security, climate change, trade facilitation and gender issues. Present at the accreditation ceremony were the EAC Deputy Secretary General in charge of Planning and Infrastructure Eng Steven Mlote and other senior officials. EAC is an intergovernmental organisation composed of six countries in the African Great Lakes region in eastern...

On July 7, 2019 African Heads of State and Government held their summit in Niger and signed up the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The signing was a continuation of a long process. It includes the summit where 44 Heads of States and Governments met in Rwanda in March 2018 to deliberate on the matter. The free trade area is among the key issues of discussion in the continent and beyond. New as it is, there are many unknowns in this potentially very important initiative to boost trade in Africa. This piece contributes in making the AfCFTA more known. AfCFTA The AfCFTA is a free trade area outlined in the African Continental Free Trade Agreement among 54 of the 55 African Union nations. Source: The Citizen

The East African Community (EAC), with a population of about 168.2 million and a combined GDP of US$ 155.2 billion is one of Africa’s fastest growing regional blocs. Growth in the EAC is driven by a progressive manufacturing sector characterised by agro-processing and industrial production and exports, says EAC Trade and Investment Report 2018. According to the report, the export sector is dominated by tea, coffee and horticulture. The region possesses significant amounts of extractive resources including oil and gas, high value minerals and renewable energy. This Report provides a detailed analysis of the trends for the year and synthesises the prospects for enhancement of trade and investment in the region. “The aim is to provide a platform for stakeholders, academics and policy makers to review the status of trade and investment, examine the developments at the regional and global level that have an impact on trade and investment in the EAC and measures to link the Region to the global economy,” it says. Key developments during the year 2018, with potential to influence future trade and investment outcomes, include the positive economic growth of the Region that positions the EAC as a trade and investment hub; the growing Global Value Chains that impact on agricultural production and industrial processes; logistical infrastructural development; and the Africa Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). The East African Economy expanded at 5.7 percent in 2018, up from 5.6 percent in 2017. The report attributes the growth to increased infrastructure investment in roads, rail and electricity;...

Speaking at an EAC high level EA business and investment summit held in Arusha this week, Serengeti Breweries Limited’s Managing Director, Mark Ocitti whose company is currently investing 14 million pounds (over 40bn/-) in expansion of its three brewing plants in the country, said the bloc’s tax regimes are not business friendly. Giving his views at a plenary session entitled, ‘Tax regime harmonization-fears, benefits and practical way forward’, Ocitti said, “The list of stays of implementation continue to grow due to concerns in terms of economic asymmetry between EAC member states in terms of revenue considerations, support for infant industries; affordability, high quality and sufficient availability of inputs, focus on growing competitive upstream industries and supply of high quality products at affordable prices for consumers.” Ocitti called for speedy tax harmonization among the EAC members saying that though some significant ground has been covered, the prevailing barriers to trade needed to be quickly managed in order to have a steady flow of investment and free movement of goods and services. “Vehicles such as duty remission schemes continue to play a crucial role in supporting manufacturing in EAC,” Ocitti argued while noting that different interpretation of the EAC Treaty’s article terms such as ‘import’ by the members has led to the higher domestic taxes charged on goods originating the bloc, a protectionist move that has lowered intra-EAC trade. Explaining on the impact of the current state on the brewing industry, the SBL chief executive noted that differences in the domestic taxation...

Parliamentary Diplomacy has played a key role in Global Governance. Experts from all over the world have analysed empirical case studies to demonstrates that parliamentarians and parliamentary assemblies have an increasingly important international role. The European Parliament, said to be one of the strongest autonomous institutional actors in world politics has been at the center of Parliamentary Diplomacy but the world has been turning attention to Africa: looking into the role of parliament and cabinet in foreign policy making, especially in South Africa and the East African Legislative Assembly. According to Weiglas and de Boer (2007, pp.93-4), Parliamentary Diplomacy is the full range of international activities undertaken by parliamentarians in order to increase mutual understanding between countries, to assist each other in improving the control of governments and the representation of a people and to increase the democratic legitimacy of inter-governmental institutions. In this article, Joel Okwemba, the Managing Director at the Centre for International and Security Affairs, shares his thoughts on Why we need a Structured Parliamentary Diplomacy for Africa. Why we need a Structured Parliamentary Diplomacy for Africa. However, opportunities are abounding when it comes to: how Parliaments interact with Foreign Policy questions; how Parliaments engage with the State on these questions; how to create form and structure on Parliamentary Diplomacy; and in the development of academic and theoretical literature on the Parliamentary Diplomacy theory in Africa. Parliamentary Diplomacy also referred to as Parlomacy[1], creates opportunities that are alternatives and complimentary to traditional diplomatic approaches that rely on...

It was born a long 22 years after a regional economic bloc by the same name but with fewer partner states collapsed – in 1977 – after only ten years of existence. The current edition of the EAC stands on a surface area of 2.5 million square kilometres and is home to 172 million people, some 22 per cent of whom live in urban areas. By its own account, the bloc had a combined GDP of US$ 172 billion in 2017, whose realisation one would dare suggest bears immense strategic and geopolitical significance. Some observers have argued that whoever engineered the crumbling of the “first-phase” EAC committed a sin of gigantic proportions. The EAC inherited the functions of what was known as East African Common Services Organisation (EACSO), itself set up soon after Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda gained their political independence in the early 1960s. Incidentally, EACSO itself took over from the East African High Commission – which was in place during the colonial era. In a way, then, it is that East African nations killed a good thing handed over to them on a silver platter. One might argue that what the three East African nations inherited was a rare asset – a case of ‘unite and quit’ instead of the much more common ‘divide and quit’ as applied to the Indian subcontinent some two decades earlier. The allusion to the commission of a gigantic blunder has a bearing on the fact that the EAC was, and is still,...

The EAC secretariat said in a statement on Wednesday that the accord was signed by the EU envoy to Tanzania and the EAC Manfredo Fanti, and EAC Secretary-General Libérat Mfumukeko. The programme is a regional response to the various and growing security threats across the EAC region, the statement noted, elaborating that it will work both on enhancing technical capacities and building trust between law enforcement agencies in the EAC partner states. Without mutual trust, data and information will not be shared, while the shared aim is to intercept those engaged in transnational organised crime, it specified. The 45-month programme will be implemented by the EAC Secretariat and the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol), complementing several other initiatives to ensure peace and security in the EAC zone. “Cooperation in this area can work only if there is mutual trust among law enforcement agencies and this is what the programme aims at,” the EU envoy noted. In his remarks Amb. Mfumukeko hailed the long standing partnership between the EAC and the EU in the peace and security sector, which he said was a key enabler to the integration process in East Africa. “The current phase of EDF11 has set aside 85 million euros for a variety of interventions supportive to various integration initiatives, among them peace and security. The EAC is also a beneficiary of 528 million euros through a regional envelope that covers IGAD, COMESA, IOC and SADC,” he stated. Since 2007, the EU has extended support to the EAC...

The African Infrastructure Guarantee Mechanism’ was organised as part of the 3rd African Pension Funds and Alternatives Investment Conference. It was well attended by an audience mostly composed of industry players – private pension fund administrators, trustees, asset managers, government pension funds and development finance institutions. This grouping clearly demonstrates the interest to develop such initiatives to scale up greater investments in the African infrastructure space. The session was moderated by Dr Morgan Pillay Senior Infrastructure Finance Expert from GIZ, who presented the objectives of the AUDA-NEPAD session. To objectives were; to gauge the appetite of institutional investors (pension funds) for the implementation of the African Infrastructure Guarantee Mechanism and discuss its financial potential; and to make use of the Pension Fund conference platform to consult on what can make the concept a reality. This includes possible implementation strategies and concrete action steps towards scaling risk mitigation and an African Guarantee Scheme to enable the mobilisation of African pension fund investment for African infrastructure. The session panel, with representatives from the AUDA-NEPAD, the African Development Bank; the Development Bank of Southern Africa and the Trade and Development Bank gave its interpretation of the African Infrastructure Guarantee Mechanism as instrument of risk mitigation. Industry players were requested to give their thoughts on how the development of such initiative could bring value in facilitating alternative investments in the African Infrastructure space. Deliberations included working with development partners in the development of similar initiatives such as the African Development Bank and its co-guarantee...

The East African Community (EAC) has launched a campaign aimed at creating a new momentum towards its regional integration agenda. COMPETITION The campaign dubbed ‘The EAC I Deserve’, which targets to reach over 10 million East African citizens in the next one year, was officially launched during the regional bloc’s 20th anniversary in Arusha, Tanzania, on November 21, 2019. The campaign will include social media interfaces and a regional youth videos and animations competition involving all EAC partner states where 30 youthful winners will take home $25,000. “The youth must actively engage in the integration process. Accounting for over 65 per cent of East Africa’s total population, capturing and incorporating their dreams and aspirations in the integration agenda through videos and animations in the competition is imperative,” said EAC Secretary-General Ambassador Liberat Mfumukeko. Source: Daily Nation

Kenya could be allowed to secure its own preferential market access for exports to the European Union if the regional Economic Partnership Agreement fails to take shape, EU has signaled. This comes amid continued delays by the East Africa Community(EAC) member states to ratify the EPA deal as a bloc, which would secure duty-free quota-free market access with the 28-member union. While Kenya and Rwanda signed the EPA in September 2016, with Kenya ratifying the pact the same year,Tanzania, Uganda and Burundi are yet to ratify the EPA. For the EPA to enter into force, the three remaining EAC members need to sign and ratify the agreement. The delay is threatening Kenya's free market access for its exports to Europe. EU ambassador to Kenya Simon Mordue yesterday said Kenya could be allowed to go ahead solo under the "variable geometry" provision, which allows certain members states to implement trade agreements faster than others or before others which are not ready. “Kenya is obviously very keen together with Rwanda to move forward and start this trading arrangement with European Union as quickly as possible because they full understand the benefits of this agreement,” EU ambassador to Kenya Simon Mordue said in Nairobi yesterday. “You come to us and send a signal that there is a wish to pursue variable geometry. This is something that the EU would look at very carefully and say how we would best be able to respond,” Mordue added. Tanzania in 2016 rejected the deal on claims...