A study on gender equality in East Africa has found that despite being ranked among countries with the highest number of women in political leadership, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Tanzania are no different from Kenya, as real power to make decisions and deliver equity still belongs to men. With female leaders failing to influence political decisions, the needs of women who form the majority of the population in East African remain subordinate to men. The study is titled "East African Community Gender Barometer," which has baseline statistics, where partner states check off progress on implementation of the yet-to-be assented to gender equity law that was passed by the regional assembly in March 2017. It emerged that the large number of women in politics hadn't made much of a difference in achieving equity. The gender equality, equity and development law is meant to protect women and children against sexual and gender-based violence, force EAC partners states to provide free primary and secondary education for all, reduce maternal and child mortality and protect the rights of civilians during war. The law is also meant to get EAC partner states to achieve gender parity in politics, so that both women and men enjoy the same influence in budgeting and deciding which public services are the most important for the population. This has not happened. In Uganda, for example, issues that affect women are generally underfunded. Jailed Makerere University researcher Dr Stella Nyanzi has for example pointed government's failure to provide money for menstrual...

East Africa Community (EAC) member states are set to meet in June to fast track implementation of the single air transport market, the bloc said on Wednesday. EAC Senior Transport Economist Eric Ntagengerwa told a regional forum in Nairobi that the 14th EAC Sectoral Council on Transport, Communication and Meteorology will be considering the recommendations by the Heads of Civil Aviation and Airports Authorities to adopt the regional Air Transport Regulations. "The outcome of the meeting will allow the region to remove all the fears on eligibility criteria, market access, fair competition and others that are delaying the adoption of the regional regulations which are required to fully liberalize the EAC domestic aviation industry," Ntagengerwa said during the validation meeting to study on costs and benefits of air transport liberalization in EAC. In 1999, 44 signatory African States signed the Yamoussoukro Decision (YD) that calls for the full liberalization of the African aviation industry by removing all restrictions on access, price, frequency and capacity in intra-African air transport market. The EAC Partner States have committed to fully implement the decision as part of the Common Market Protocol and in line with the ongoing efforts by the African Union Commission (AUC) and the African Civil Aviation Commission (AFCAC) to establish a single African air transport market. Ntagengerwa said that the domestic air transport within the EAC remains un-harmonized until the regional regulations on liberalization of air transport market, which were developed by the EAC Secretariat in 2014, are adopted. "Although some...

National carriers in the five-nation East African Community bloc stand to lose market share to international carriers should the proposed open skies policies be implemented, a study suggested yesterday. The study by global management consulting firm InterVISTAS on costs and benefits of open skies shows that increased competition from non-national carriers could threaten the profitability of airlines in the region. “While increased competition has the potential to weaken the viability and profitability of home carriers in some instances, liberalisation also offers a means to restructure the carriers and protect profitability by expanding into new markets,” InterVISTAS senior vice president for aviation forecasting Ian Kincaid said in Nairobi. The research states that whether the home carrier prospers or suffers under liberalisation will highly depend on the quality of its management and how the carrier chooses to respond. In 1999, the Yamoussoukro Decision was adopted by 44 African countries, recognising that the strict regulatory protection that sustains national carriers has unfavourable effects on a country’s economic growth. The decision was aimed at liberalising air transport in African countries to create a conducive environment for foreign and regional investment.The survey commissioned by the East African Business Council and the EAC Secretariat is aimed at providing information on the impact of implementing the Yamoussoukro Decision in East Africa. “Implementation of YD remains pending mostly due to a lack of clear and specific information regarding the impacts of enacting such liberalization,” Kincaid said. EABC CEO Lilian Awinja reiterated the sluggish implementation of open skies by...

Kenyan lawyers will start practising in other East African countries if an agreement between member states is approved. The government, through the Ministry of East African Community (EAC) and the department of Labour and Social Protection, has announced elaborate plans that will enable lawyers to work freely within the bloc. Barack Ndegwa, the secretary in charge of integration in the State department responsible for the EAC, said there is a mutual-recognition agreement being drafted to facilitate the move. “We are working on the mutual-recognition agreement that will see lawyers from the neighbouring EAC partner states such as Uganda and Tanzania come to work in Kenya while ours also work in their countries,” said Mr Ndegwa. He was speaking in Nakuru during a two-day workshop organised for Law Society of Kenya lawyers. Mr Ndegwa noted that the establishment of the EAC court in Tanzania will require lawyers from member states to handle matters and represent their clients at the court. He said lawyers from member states need exposure on the East African Treaty laws that are being drafted to understand how the East African Court of Justice operates. He said the court has already opened registries in the capitals of member states. Mr Ndegwa was accompanied by East African Court of Justice Registrar Yufnalis Okubo and David Njoka, the director of political affairs in the State department of the EAC and integration. Source: Daily Nation

Prevalence of trade barriers in the region is a contributor to food shortage especially hampering movement of grains. East Africa Grain Council (EAGC) says trade barriers have pushed business of grains from formal, well-regulated channels to informal, unregulated and inefficient mediums. Grain experts say informal trade translates to higher food safety risks, lower quality, high post-harvest losses, higher transaction costs and ultimately higher consumer prices. “Today, 70 per cent of maize, 63 per cent of dry beans, 57 per cent of rice and 89 per cent of millet are traded informally across national borders. This scenario has exposed more than 10 million East Africans to hunger,” Eagc Board Chairman Bernard Otim told People Daily during the council’s Annual Members’ meeting in Nairobi. Despite importance of regional food trade in availing markets for producers and affordable food for consumers, export bans, import bans or both, are active in a number of countries in Eastern and Southern Africa region. Otim said there are close to 20 countries affected by such a scenario in the region. “It is an irony that our governments have been quick to sign regional and continental commitments to support agriculture but have been slow to back such commitments with concrete action and resources,” he said. A few of these countries have committed 10 per cent of their national budgets to the agricultural sector as per the AU Malabo Declaration. Regrettably, development of the grain sector in the region is inhibited by a restrictive policy environment, characterised by ad...

While many new African rail lines have been proposed over the past 20 years, there is a growing trend of them actually being built. To take one example, the first phase of the new standard gauge line in Kenya, from Mombasa to Nairobi, is approaching completion. Indeed, it is this project that may have given added emphasis to the development of the Tanzanian line. Both new lines, as with the ageing colonial-era lines in the region, connect landlocked Eastern Africa to the rival ports of Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, Kenya and Tanzania’s competing windows on the world. Mombasa is already the larger of the two and its possession of a far superior rail connection could have proved deciding in attracting business. The new contract relates to the 300km section of line between Dar and Morogoro. A joint venture of Turkey’s Yapi Merkezi and Mota-Engil of Portugal were awarded the contract in December following a competitive tender managed by Tanzania Railways Corporation. Both companies have made Africa a marketing priority. Yapi Merkezi had requested financial guarantees on the project from the Turkish government. Ankara is keen to encourage much greater involvement in Africa by Turkish companies. However, the government and the state owned rail utility may have to review the tender process for future contracts. Although a massive 40 companies asked for the tender application documents, only one bid was received. It is possible that the successful contractors were prepared to make an attractive financial offer in order to aid...

A newly designed Short Messaging Service for reporting trade barriers within the tripartite regional economic blocs has been launched. The SMS will supplement the current web based online system for reporting, monitoring and elimination of Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) used by the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (Sadc). The Tripartite online reporting system is a real-time, mechanism for reporting, processing, monitoring and resolving NTBs and is available on www.tradebarriers.org. It was operationalised in November 2010. The SMS tool was first launched in 2013 in Zambia to facilitate a diverse spectrum of economic operators, especially the informal and small scale traders who may not have access to the internet. “At the time the design of the SMS reporting too, there was a central number to which the economic operators in different countries could send the SMS messages to report the trade obstacles that they could have encountered,” Mr Tasara Muzorori, senior trade officer in Comesa said. This was expensive for the economic operators as it involved incurring roaming charges. “It was also a challenge to publicise that central number to the relevant players in each of the countries as the foreign numbers did not identify with local users,” Mr Muzorori said. “Further, the system was faced with sustainability challenges as it was operated outside the National NTBs structures thereby requiring continued donor support to cater for administration costs.” This led to the re-design of the SMS system whereby each...

The six member States of the East African Community (EAC) are set to meet this week in Rwanda to push for the implementation of the One Area Mobile Network, officials said on Monday. Kenya's Communication Authority Director General Francis Wangusi told Xinhua that Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and South Sudan are already part of the single network. "Later this week EAC ministers in charge of telecommunications will discuss ways to fast track operationalization of the single network," Wangusi said on the sidelines of the opening ceremony of the 36th Ordinary Session of the Administrative Council of the pan-African postal union. Once the single area network is effective, all intra-EAC mobile tariffs will be harmonized so that the calls within the trading bloc will be treated as local calls. Wangusi said that the overall objective is to reduce the cost of communication in the region. "It is unfortunate that it is cheaper to call Europe, Asia and the US from EAC partner states than it is to call other member states," said Wangusi. While South Sudan has joined the single network, it is yet to implement the network, and Tanzania will have to amend its telecom laws before it becomes part of the network. Wangusi said that due to civil strife in Burundi, it may take the country longer than expected to join the single mobile network. The one area network will be a building block to the Smart Africa Initiative that aims to make Africa a single mobile area network. Wangusi...

East Africa still seems relatively unloved as a petroleum province and yet it has a number of positive aspects: There is a regional entity, the East African Community, which draws together Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania (but not Mocambique). There is a declared ambition to bring energy to the combined population of 150+ million but little yet in the way of actual development or actionable plans. Post Brexit, the UK Department of International Trade (DIT) has declared an Oil & Gas High Value Campaign for East Africa, the aim being to deliver opportunities for UK companies in the region. DIT has representatives in-country and an officer in Whitehall who carries the regional responsibility: DIT's current early focus seems to be on the big gas (LNG) developments offshore Tanzania and Mocambique (see 3.). There is no shortage of resources and reserves. Significant oil has been found onshore in the rift plays of Uganda and Kenya; there is commercial gas under production in Tanzania, and at least one further discovery; there are world class (??100 Tcf) gas discoveries offshore Tanzania and Mocambique; there is the potential for a significant oil play in the coastal region from northern Mocambique, through Tanzania, potentially into Kenya, first evidence of which may be provided by recent wells drilled by Aminex in Tanzania and Sasol in Mocambique, There is current production of gas in Tanzania at Songo Songo, Kiliwani-North and Mnazi Bay. There is an under-utilised pipeline from the producing fields up to Dar-es- Salaam. A possible starting...

The 2017/18 East African Community budget will be relatively smaller compared to the current closing financial year owing to the current economic situation, regional ministers have decided. During the recent meeting of the Council of Ministers in Arusha, Tanzania, the bloc’s Secretary General, Amb. Libérat Mfumukeko, submitted a budget proposal for financial year 2017/18 amounting to $113.8 million compared to the current budget of $101.4 million. “Owing to the current economic situation, all partner states are experiencing rationalisation of their national budgets and, therefore, it would be difficult to increase contributions to the EAC Budget,” reads a report of the central decision-making organ of the Community. “The meeting, therefore, agreed to a zero per cent increase in partner states contributions to the 2017/18 Budget.” The Council observed that although there is no increase in the individual partner states’ contribution, countries’ total contribution will increase after including contribution from the Community’s new member, South Sudan. From May 22 to June 3, the final sitting of the third East African Legislative Assembly (EALA), in Arusha, Tanzania, will mainly debate the budget estimates as adopted by the Council. MP Patricia Hajabakiga, chairperson of EALA Rwanda Chapter, told The New Times that nothing much is likely to change. “Of course the budget voted by EALA cannot go beyond the ceiling provided by the partner states. It is only rationalising within what is already available,” Hajabakiga said. “In case some institution needs something and maybe some other institution has excess then they will rationalise within...