East African Community Secretariat, Arusha, Tanzania, 20th July, 2023: Retired Sierra Leonean President Ernest Bai Koroma has reaffirmed the critical role of national and regional courts in strengthening the democratisation process and promoting good governance in Africa.
President Koroma said that regional courts such as the East African Court of Justice (EACJ) complement national courts in upholding the rule of law and the respect for human rights thereby sustaining the growth of democracy on the continent.
President Koroma said that in instances where people had lost faith in judicial systems, there were inherent risks for sustainable peace and stability.
Kampala, 20thJuly, 2023:The Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA) held a groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the second phase of its Headquarters in Kampala. The project worth over USD8.4 million is expected to be completed within 18 months.
Speaking at the groundbreaking ceremony held at IUCEA Headquarters in Kampala, the Chief Guest, the 1st Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for East African Community (EAC) Affairs, Republic of Uganda, Rt. Hon. Rebecca Kadaga, reiterated the commitment of EAC Partner States to support IUCEA to deliver its mandate including operationalisation of EAC Common Higher Education Area.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, 12th July, 2023: African Union Members States have been called upon to adopt policies to encourage intra-African trade in food production by among other things removing Non-tariff Barriers (NTBs) that currently make imports from outside the continent costly compared to locally produced food.
AU Member States were further urged to invest in irrigation agriculture by moving away from the reliance on rain-fed agriculture.
African countries were called upon to adopt policies that motivate the youth to take part in agriculture to ensure increased production and reduce food insecurity.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, 10th July, 2023: Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for East African Community and Arid and Semi-arid Lands, Hon. Rebecca Miano, has underscored the importance of a vibrant private sector in promoting economic growth at the national, regional and continental levels in Africa.
Hon. Miano said that the Private Sector accounts for 80 per cent of Africa’s total production, two-thirds of investment and three-quarters of credit in addition to employing 90 per cent of the continent’s working-age population.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 10th July, 2023: The East African Community (EAC) has unveiled an online tool to measure the performance of the 22 One Stop Border Posts (OSBPs) across the region.
The EAC Secretary General in charge of Customs, Trade and Monetary Affairs, Ms. Annette Ssemuwumba, unveiled the One Stop Border Post Performance Measurement Tool on behalf of the EAC Secretary General, Hon. (Dr.) Peter Mathuki, during the opening session of the 14th African Union High Level Private Sector Forum that is taking place in Nairobi, Kenya this week.
Ms. Ssemuwemba announced that the tool is now ready for use and that Partner States and stakeholders will embark on data collection, sensitisation on use and full roll out.
Nairobi, Kenya, 8th July, 2023: The African Union Commission in collaboration with the East African Community Secretariat will be organising the 14th African Union High Level Private Sector Forum at the Kenyatta International Convention Centre (KICC) in Nairobi, Kenya from 10th – 12th July, 2023.
The three-day forum themed “Public-Private Sector Engagement for Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development while Deepening Regional and Continental Trade and Investment towards Implementation of AfCFTA” is expected to draw more than 500 participants from Africa and beyond.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 7th July,2023: The Prime Minister of Uganda, Rt. Hon. Robinah Nabbanja, has underscored the importance of the Kiswahili language in forging a sense of East Africanness and unity on the journey towards an integrated East Africa.
Rt. Hon. Nabbanja said that the East African region was highly diverse ethnically and linguistically citing 56 tribes in Uganda, 42 in Kenya and more than 120 Tanzania, adding that Kiswahili would come in handy in forging a common sense of identity for all East Africans.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 6th July,2023: Africans have been called upon to develop Kiswahili and other African languages to make them globally competitive.
Delivering the keynote address during the official opening session of the 2nd EAC World Kiswahili Language Day celebrations in Kampala, Uganda, Kiswahili language scholar and University of Dar es Salaam academic Prof. Fikeni E. M. K. Senkoro further said that languages have become commodities on the global stage.
Prof. Senkoro said that there is an urgent need to develop Kiswahili and other languages to make them marketable in people’s daily lives and business transactions.
East African Community Headquarters, Arusha, Tanzania, 5th July,2023: Ugandans have been called upon to learn and Kiswahili as part of efforts to promote regional integration and economic growth in East Africa.
Making the call, Uganda’s 1st Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for East African Community (EAC) Affairs, Hon. Rebecca Alitwala Kadaga, was a widely spoken language that could be utilised to unite not just East Africa but the entire African continent, adding that Ugandans should therefore embrace it as an African language.
Hon. Kadaga said that Kiswahili had earned a bad reputation partly because it was used in pre-colonial times by slave traders from the East African Coast.
East African Community Secretariat, Arusha, Tanzania, 3rd July, 2023: The East African Community (EAC) Secretariat in collaboration with the republics of Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan and in partnership with the AU Border Programme (AUBP), have launched a peace caravan and benchmarking tour for border communities in selected areas where border and/or boundary issues have been peacefully and successfully resolved for experiential learning at Namanga on the Kenya-Tanzania border, Kenya side.
The overall objective of the caravan is to promote peaceful co-existence, good neighbourliness and peaceful resolution of disputes among border communities through experiential learning from best practices of other border communities in the region.
