EAC, Germany meet, deliberate on further collaborations

GERMAN technical and financial support to the East African Community (EAC) over the past two decades reached 285 million Euros (over 780bn/-). According to EAC Secretary General Ambassador Liberat Mfumukeko, Germany has during the period been offering essential backup to the community, especially on the integration agenda, the support which the EAC highly appreciates.

The Federal Republic of Germany has been supporting the EAC in the sectors of health and pharmaceuticals; trade and customs; gender and education; monetary harmonisation, institutional capacity strengthening and EAC Partnership Fund. And, at a meeting between Ambassador Mfumukeko and German senior officials, Germany agreed to further support EAC on scholarship programme for students from the partner states.

The agreement was consequently signed. In the discussions that centred on regional priorities for collaborations in the next three years, Ambassador Mfumukeko represented the EAC whileGermany had representatives from the Ministries for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ); Foreign Affairs and KfW Development Bank. EAC Secretariat’s Head, Corporate Communication and Public Affairs Owora Othieno

said BMZ delegation was led by the Parliamentary State Secretary, Dr Maria Flachsbarth as Regional Director for Sub- Saharan Africa and the Sahel Ambassador Georg Schmidt and KFW Director Eastern Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo and the African Union Dr Klaus Müller led the Germany Foreign Ministry and KFW delegations, respectively. The Inter-University Council for East Africa (IUCEA) and KFW will cooperatively implement the Scholarship Programme whose objective is to promote EAC’s regional integration

agenda by supporting higher education students and their role in fostering awareness for the regional integration process, creating social change as well as economic growth. Dr Müller proposed for EAC mobilisation of additional funds to support the programme from partner states and other donors. Under component A ‘scholarships’, the project offers financial support for academically gifted

but disadvantaged masters students mainly on Mathematics, Informatics, Science, Technology (MINT) or Business Science, with women specifically encouraged to join MINT courses. The students will also get acquainted with other EAC countries through semester or full studies abroad, based on individual preferences. Comparable to the European Erasmus Programme, a higher degree of regional identity will be promoted.

At universities, mentors will be selected to support the students during the masters programme. The project shall finance the first three cohorts of master students of 157 students over their full study period of two years. Ambassador Mfumukeko highlighted the EAC priorities for the next five years as spelt out in the fifth EAC Development Strategy that the Heads of State launched in February 2018 as among others, consolidation of the Single Customs Territory (SCT) to cover all imports and intra-EAC traded goods, including agricultural and other widely consumed products;

infrastructure development; further liberalisation of free movement of labour across partner states; and enhancement of regional industrial development through investment in key priority sectors, skills development, technological advancement and innovation to stimulate economic development. Others include improvement of agricultural productivity, value addition and facilitation of movement of agricultural goods to enhance food security in the region; promotion of regional peace, security and good governance; and institutional transformation at the regional and partner state levels.