If it works as hoped, mobile phone users shall pay a uniform tariff to place a voice call from Rwanda to Tanzania or to Burundi, a development likely to significantly ease the cost of telecommunication services among East African Central Corridor countries.

The One  Network Area (ONA) is just one of 10 ambitious development clusters that Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and the DR Congo have agreed to jointly implement under the Central Corridor infrastructure projects development initiative.

In June 2013, when the leaders of Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya first paraded the idea of the Northern Corridor integration projects, doubters misread the development as a sign of disharmony within the East African Community, and named the trinity, ‘coalition of the willing.’

That ‘willingness’, however, seems to have now spread to the Central Corridor where partners are warming up to embrace a set of ambitious projects whose implementation framework is inspired that of the Northern Corridor.

Senior technocrats from the five Central Corridor trading partners, today, end a two-day meeting in Kigali, whose objective was to prepare a mutually acceptable implementation framework for the projects.

The technocrats’ meeting is a precursor to an inter-governmental council of Central Corridor ministers of east african affairs, infrastructure and transport, which kicks off tomorrow.

In their meeting, the ministers will be presented with the implementation framework by the technocrats for approval.

The ministers will then present the approved implementation framework and other recommendations to the heads of state of the five Central Corridor countries during their summit expected to take place next month.

Direct impact benefits

Rwanda’s Minister for East African Affairs, Amb Valentine Rugwabiza was represented at the meeting by the Ministry’s Coordinator of EAC affairs, Nathan Gashayija who is also the chairman of the central corridor stake holders’ consultative meeting.

It’s anticipated that initiatives aimed at improving the central corridor which accounts for over 60 percent of the country’s regional trade will have a direct impact on transport costs thus contributing to the reduction of the cost of doing business in the region.

Rukia Shamte, the executive secretary of the Central Corridor transit transport facilitation agency which is coordinating the activities, said it is important that they have some tangible progress to show at the next presidential summit after the first one held in March.

"We must target quick wins even as we plan for long-term goals such as the railway and roads which we do not expect to deliver immediately,” Shamte said.

Each of the five Central Corridor trading partners has been charged with the responsibility of coordinating activities for two of the 10 development clusters that were proposed.

Tanzania will coordinate the railway transport and energy clusters, while DR Congo will take charge of maritime and roads projects.

Uganda will be in charge of trade facilitation, as well as  safety and security clusters, while Burundi has been charged with a somewhat less specific role of overseeing ‘cross-cutting issues’ and ‘value corridor.’

Meanwhile, Rwanda has been tasked to take the lead in coordinating all projects under aviation and ICT under which it will seek to extend the One Network Area initiative to counterparts of Burundi, Tanzania and DR Congo.

Countries must come up with possible projects for implementation under each of the development clusters they have been put in charge.

According to Gordon Kalema, the principal technologist at  Rwanda’s Ministry of Youth and ICT, the country has already engaged its counterparts on how to fast-track the implementation of the one area network.

In a meeting held in Kigali on July 16, delegates from Tanzania and Burundi agreed to appoint focal persons to fast-track projects under the ICT cluster.

The one network area is one of the early success stories of the Northern Corridor integration projects initiatives involving Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya.

For instance, to make voice calls between Uganda and Rwanda, telecommunication service users are charged a uniform tariff of US10 cents per minute and $0.06 for short text messages.

Tanzania and Burundi are the only EAC members proper not to have signed up to the One Network Area initiative so far.

Political will

Analysts say it is too early to say whether the ambitious plans on the Central Corridor will be a success, but they point out that the biggest incentive for success is the political will of the leaders, a factor that has greatly aided the progress of the Northern Corridor projects.

The first presidential round table on Central Corridor infrastructure development was hosted by Tanzania President Jakaya Kikwete on March 25 in Dar er Salaam, during which the heads of state agreed to jointly fast-track key pilot projects.

"The activities on the central and northern corridors will benefit our traders who will have two competitive routes at their disposal; this is what we need to reduce the cost of trading in the region,” said Emmanuel Rutagengwa, a transport economist.