EAC: A new dawn for the region

The East African Community (EAC) secretariat this week continued to play its ultimate responsibility of providing a platform on which all the five partner states can simultaneously build a bright future for their citizens. Events were held and there were discussions ranging from conflict management and peace building, control of cross border spread of HIV/Aids, to working out a comprehensive power master plan for the whole of the East African region. These fit well in EAC’s development strategy (2006-2010) which has among other pillars of the integration process; cooperation in political matters, defence and security, laying the foundation for establishing an East African Political federation and combating the HIV/Aids pandemic. Make peaceIn a workshop about peace building and conflict management that brought together experts from the five partner states, participant after participant underscored the need for concerted efforts in dealing with conflicts. While some cited examples of the post election violence that took place in Kenya early this year, others decried the need for quelling internal conflicts between pastoral tribes such as Masai and local populations in countries like Tanzania and Kenya. War against HIVFurther, the need for renewed efforts in the combating the HIV and Aids pandemic cannot be emphasised enough especially in a like region East Africa that is home to over 4 million people living with HIV/AIDS and over 3.5 million orphans and vulnerable children. Most risky populations were found to be along the major regional transport corridors in the partner states. These include truck drivers and their assistants, sex workers, and men who have sex with their other men. Communities that host these groups were found to be at great risk. This group knowingly or unknowingly has over the years succumbed to the wrath of this pandemic. There is therefore a dire call to save the lives of these people. There is need for organisations working in HIV/AIDS prevention along the EAC transport corridors to come together and share information, improve coordination and build synergy among programmes so to have greater impact on populations that are at this risk. Take a load off Going by plans in place, East Africans may not so far from now refer to load shedding as something of the past. A standing committee on implementation of the East Africa power master plan sat and came up with plans on how transmission companies in the region can connect to one electricity grid. According to technicians who attended the three-day meeting, by November next year a central power pool will have been installed and this will lead to a better and efficient power flow among partner states in a manner that benefits all. This comes as relief to East Africa which still has a small proportion of its population connected to the national electricity grids (i.e. 32 pe rcent of the urban population and 3 per cent of the rural population). At this pace, the EAC will surely achieve its mission of deepening and widening economic, political, social and cultural integration in order to improve the quality of the people of East Africa. gmuramila@gmail.com