It was a great inspiration watching the young female ICT innovators, demonstrate their application to the presidents and delegates during the recently concluded Northern Corridor Summit in Kigali.

This was one of the many highlights of the Summit. The onus now falls on the regional governments to invest in the realisation and massive uptake of these innovations. Research, Innovation and Development (RID) in our case here is too costly to regard as a business as usual investment  of the private sector. We need substantive and substantial coordinated regional state investment to bring such innovations to fruition.

For example, during the Transform Africa Summit 2013, one key innovation was by one Prince Dukundane, then at the College of Science and Technology, University of Rwanda. This is a device that determines the amount of different soil nutrients in a given locality, thus guiding the Agronomist on what fertilisers to apply where and in what quantities. In a region whose economies and majority people depend on agriculture, such a device deserves priority financing or state institutions buying the intellectual property rights from the innovator, for massive production.  Am not updated about Prince Dukundane’s innovation but  leaving it to end at laboratory level would be a great loss to the farmer in East Africa.

And this leads us to the two key ingredients missing in the Northern Corridor Initiative. The post-Summit Communiqué highlighted other integration undertakings that will make the Northern Corridor railways infrastructure viable, since transport is principally an aid to trade or a facilitator component. The real thing lies with intra-regional trade.

Trade is a function of production and this one key ingredient that seems ignored in the debate, at least going by what the Communiqué stated and did not state.  Production, notably industrial production is what will make economic and business sense of the NCIP. The current East African Industrialisation Strategy reveals that out of the total volume of intra-EAC trade, only 5% is in EAC manufactured goods.

This is a setback at two levels, namely we consume 95% of imported manufactured goods, and thus literally donating income and jobs to the exporting countries; and two, our own intra-EAC trade does not earn enough for the intra-EAC traders, since they trade low-value goods.

Therefore if the infrastructure along the Northern and other Corridors is to have a transformative impact on our lives, we need a clearly defined industrialisation strategy. True, this could have its sector-specific platform and for a, but the highlighting of other sectors and initiatives in the Communiqué points to the fact that these are the actual drivers, with infrastructure being a support sector.

The focus on oil seems to have overshadowed other sectors, as evidenced in the emphasis on Partner States taking up shares in the oil refinery. Similar emphasis needs to be made for Partner State investment in key commanding heights of our economy as a region.  We thus long to hear of the launching of East African Industrial Development Corporation, owned by the Partner States, focusing on Resource-Based Industrialisation which has the potential for maximum impact across the citizens in the region. Industrialisation takes place at four key levels, traditionally defined according to the level of technological sophistication involved. Though there are overlaps  especially in the current era of rapid technological advancement, the four key levels are Resource-Based Industrialisation( RBI); Light Technology Industrialisation( LTI), Medium Technology Industrialisation( MTI) and High Technology Industrialisation( HTI or Hi-Tech). These levels are now possible across East Africa, if well planned and zoned following specified criteria. RBI for example finds a natural home in agriculture and unless we have a structured strategy for it, we shall have our standard gauge railways, super highways and airspace importing peanut butter while we export raw cabbages, thus keeping our current balance of trade tilted against us. Setting standards, harmonising regulations, removing all barriers (tariff and non-tariff) is good but not sufficient. We the citizens of the EAC will benefit from state investment in the oil refinery if it is accompanied by investments that will put income directly into our pockets. A typical urban family will have impact on the local economy if besides Ugandan petrol in their car; they consume bread baked with Rwandan wheat grown by smallholder farmers linked to East African Millers Ltd and garnished with Tanzanian peanut butter, from East African Food Industries; both crops grown under nucleus-outgrower schemes.

The other ingredient that was mentioned in the Communiqué is Human Resource Development. A recent training workshop on the Free Movement of People, Free Movement of Labour and Trade in Services, revealed wide disparities  in  skill distribution across the EAC.  EAC here needs to benchmark SADC, who established Swaziland as their centre for HR development. Burundi can host ours, perhaps helping its pacification.

The writer is a social commentator.