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Germany intensifies partnership with East African Community
On Wednesday (28 November) the new headquarters of the East African Community (EAC) will be inaugurated in Arusha, Tanzania. The construction costs of nearly 15 million euros have been funded by Germany in the context of its development cooperation with the EAC.
Federal Development Minister Dirk Niebel has issued the following statement in this connection:
It is one of our main development policy goals to strengthen regional economic groupings such as the EAC. This new building, I am pleased to say, is intended to do precisely that: assist the EAC in advancing its agenda for economic and political integration. I hope the staff of the EAC Secretariat will now make it a hive of activity and enable the East African Community to be even more effective as a driver of integration in the region.
Federal Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle commented today (27 November) as follows :
Regional stability in Africa is something that’s in our own interest, too. To build it you need viable regional organizations. That’s why we support the East African Community. The help we’ve given for its new headquarters is a hands-on contribution to the successful work the EAC is doing.
The inauguration ceremony will be attended by the Presidents of the five EAC partner states. The German Government will be represented by Egon Kochanke and Ursula Mikota, the Regional Directors for Sub-Saharan Africa and the Sahel at the Federal Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Background information:
The members of the East African Community (EAC) are the five East African countries of Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. The EAC was founded in 1999 with a view to promoting political and economic integration among its members. Based in Arusha, Tanzania, the organization is part of the African peace and security architecture set up under the auspices of the African Union.
The new building will for the first time allow the EAC’s principal organs – the East African Secretariat, Legislative Assembly and Court of Justice – to be housed under one roof. The funding for the new EAC headquarters (14.8 million euros) came from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development budget and was channelled via Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau – Reconstruction Loan Corporation (KfW).
The inauguration will also coincide with the signing of technical and financial cooperation agreements between Germany and the EAC. Germany is supporting the EAC integration process and relevant capacity-building in the Secretariat in the fields of trade, investment policy and renewable energies as well as peace and security.
Joint press release by the Federal Foreign Office and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development
