It is always a pleasure to travel across East Africa and discuss the state of the East African Community with citizens. That has been my privilege this past week when I travelled to three partner states. During my conversations, one issue that formed part of the discourse was the benefits of the community to the citizens. Secondly, an explanation of the mistrust between citizens of neighbouring countries and what can be done about it.

A few examples of some of the concerns raised will serve to illustrate my experience. In one conversation the issue raised was the possibility of men from one country marrying most of the women from another state. In another, the focus was on land being grabbed by citizens from other states. Others recalled their suffering when the original community collapsed. There was also focus on the state of constitutional development across EAC states and its implications on realisation of a political federation. I could go on and on.

The pattern being painted was of real, practical issues. And while these could be dismissed as pedantic or peripheral, they are at the heart of the perceptions East Africans have of their neighbours. It is important that we address them candidly if we are to have a sustainable and people-centred integration process.

Recently, Tanzania restricted access of Kenyan tour operators into Tanzania. The dispute escalated when Kenya stopped Tanzanian tour vans from picking and dropping tourists from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

In retaliation, Tanzania reduced the number of flights allowed to fly to and from Dar es Salaam weekly. It took the intervention of the two heads of states to resolve the issue.

So, are we making any progress as a community? The answer is varied. There are those who will tell you that we have moved from reviving the community in 1999 to signing and implementing a customs union. Further progress has been seen in the implementation from 2010 of a common market protocol. There are ongoing negotiations to enter the stage of a monetary union and from 2016, work on an EAC constitution will commence.

This group will also use statistics to show increase in intra-EAC trade, among other benefits.

Those with opposing arguments also have a compelling case. First, they point to the negative perceptions. They argue that the focus on intangibles at the expense of practical benefits for citizens is the problem, especially when they still face non-tariff barriers and cannot move as freely as the protocol envisages. Consequently, they cannot say how the community has changed their lives. After two weeks of discussions, I was not close to reconciling these views. This is the challenge that our policymakers face in their work on deepening regional integration. How do you translate the ideals of the community of being people centred and make them meaningful to the citizen in Mukono or Isiolo?

But there are small things we can do to create a difference. First, the adoption of a national identify card – and voters card in the case of Uganda – for travel in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda is a useful initial step. It has a practical impact on citizens who want to travel without a passport because they do not have to incur extra costs.

Secondly, it is important that the community pays closer attention to social issues. Use of sports and arts as tools for promoting integration are powerful avenues. Having more regional games and arts competitions across the five partner states and creating a huge wave around them can help address the negative perceptions. It is also important that we have a regional discourse on these perceptions as opposed to sweeping them under the carpet. Honest discussions are usually the first stage of resolving problem, however, intractable. I would like to end this article with my experiences from the East African Media Summit held over a week ago that brought together media industry leaders from across the region. The discussions revolved around several topics. What struck me though was the extent to which we are promoting a regional media industry. How many of the newspapers from partner states do people know and read. How much of radio and television is going regional? For those that do, are we following them? Or are we stuck with our national media?

Lastly, the media have to play their part in deliberating, focusing on and telling the EAC story. It requires all our efforts to tackle these perceptions and ensure whatever challenges exist within the integration process are identified and addressed, and the positives celebrated.

Source: reelmedia

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