Lake Victoria conservation efforts are set to be boosted by the soon to be launched Basin Development master plan by the East African Community. Juma Mwapachu.

The East African Community will soon launch the Basin Development master plan that is hoped will boost conservation efforts around Lake Victoria.

This was revealed this week by the Secretary General of the five-member block while touring several Kenyan organizations and institutions connected to the integration process of the community.

Mwapachu said a study on the proposed EAC-Lake Victoria basin development master plan would greatly solve infrastructural connections in East Africa.  

He said the plan was targeting a regional framework on road networks throughout the EAC, water transport, tourism and agricultural sectors. He added that the infrastructural projects were also contained in the Lake Victoria Basin Commission. 

President Paul Kagame in June 2008 announced during the Leon H. Sullivan conference in Arusha, that Rwanda and Tanzania were involved in negotiations for a railway line connecting Kigali to the port city of Dar Salaam.

He also said that the railway line was part of the East African Infrastructure project to be adopted by the EAC leaders in 2010. 

Mwapachu added that the Lake Victoria Basin development master plan will accelerate East Africa’s ambition of becoming a regional economic development and growth zone. He added that the size of Lake Victoria would have a big economic impact if proper policy measures were adopted because it is the second largest fresh water body in the world with a gross economic potential in the order of USD 5 billion. 

Regional infrastructure plans currently underway include the ongoing ring road around the Lake, which is part of the East African Road Network Project, with feeders leading to the shores of Lake Victoria with tourist facilities, hotels, lodges, cruise ships as well as strategic industries throughout East Africa.

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