Listen! What’s that sound bubbling up from the basement of the Ministry at the Presidency of East African Community Affairs (MPACEA) in the Burundi capital, Bujumbura? It sounds like a large group of people talking away to themselves in English. Is it some kind of foreign meditation group? Or perhaps a cocktail party organized by the British embassy? Far from it. It’s a group of men and women sat at computer terminals learning how to speak English so that Burundi will not be linguistically challenged by the dominance of English as the language of business in the East African Community. “We knew we would have to learn English to integrate with the EAC,” said MPACEA minister Hafsa Mossi. “Our government recognised the need to add English to our language abilities so now we have an English Language Laboratory in the basement.” She jokes (in English) with a group of students emerging from the basement. “How did it go?” she asks. “It was hard at first, but it is getting easier every time I come,” says one male student, with barely a trace of an accent. The first students, in a programme supported by TradeMark Africa (TMA), were ministers, permanent secretaries and civil servants, all of whom will add some knowledge of English to the local language, Kirundi, and French, a leftover from Colonial times. The programme, carried out by Williams Academy of the United States, aims to train up 2200 Burundians in groups of about 300 students with three-month intensive...

They sneak across the border back to Burundi, putting one foot quietly in front of the other on unmarked forest trails and secret tracks. The enemy is the authority. The goal is tax evasion. And the reason is ignorance. These are the women traders of Burundi who risk the wrath of the law to escape paying taxes on the food and small goods they carry in their nylon baskets from Uganda or Rwanda to sell to ready customers in border villages and further afield. It is much the same story across much the East African Community (EAC) – women traders running needless risks because of rumour and misinformation about punitive border taxes, expensive permits and baffling bureaucracy. “Women traders are the ones who face, every day, the problems of not knowing what their rights are in today’s EAC,” said Burundi’s minister for East African Community Affairs Hafsa Mossi. “Most of them haven’t a clue about their rights or their obligations.” With support from TradeMark Africa (TMA) that situation is changing. Partnering with NGOs, the government and the media, the borderline informal sector is learning that much of what they feared held no threat, and that clarity on tax obligations and paperwork can make their lives, and their profits much better. “Women traders are at the front line in disputes with the authorities at the borders,” said Floride Ahintungiye, Programme Director of the International NGO Search for Common Ground (SFCG). “With help from TradeMark Africa (TMA) our staff went to the...

Trader Jeremie Kayobera had his life changed by a radio broadcast. It wasn’t a religious broadcast, or a political one, but a nuts and bolts broadcast about how to take advantage of Burundi’s membership of the East African Community (EAC). Until that December 2011 radio show, he had bought maize flour in Tanzania or Uganda, Burundi’s economically powerful neighbours, imported it, paid his border dues and sold the staple foodstuff in his home country. Why not? It’s a pattern of business repeated across the whole spectrum of Burundi’s trade relationships with its EAC neigbours: buy across the frontier, import, and sell. Every market place in even the smallest community bears witness to this pattern of doing business. That changed overnight. He heard a radio programme explain to him that he could take advantage of start-up help from the government’s API Investment agency; he heard how much or how little he would have to pay in tax to the state’s Office Burundais des Recettes (OBR), the revenue authority. Today he has realized a dream and established his own maize mill in Kanyanza. Goodbye paying taxes on imported foodstuffs. Hello the opportunity to make bigger profits milling from local produce, and to export. “It doesn’t matter where you go in the countryside, you find that people know almost nothing about the benefits of EAC membership or the steps the government is taking to help business compete in the EAC,” says Davy Rubangisha, Programme Manager at the RPA radio, Burundi’s private and biggest...

An English revolution is sweeping across Burundi, transforming this French-speaking nation to a multi-lingual nation. The demand for the language has resulted in several English language colleges sprouting up all over the capital city. While the EAC Treaty provides English and Kiswahili as the official languages in the Community, the bigger majority of the Burundian population, including Government officials lack the requisite skills to conduct business and meetings in English. This situation has resulted in significant challenges for the Burundi population in relation to the rest EAC partner states, including difficulties in common understanding and in-depth negotiations during EAC council and sectorial meetings follow up on agreed decisions or coordination of Burundi’s EAC policy implementation. On 1st July 2007, Burundi officially acceded as a member state of the East African Community (EAC) and committed itself to a widening and deepening co-operation with Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda in the political, economic, social, and cultural fields. Today, the EAC has become the fastest growing block in Sub-Saharan Africa. Through the establishment of a Customs Union, Common Market, Monetary Union and ultimately a Political Federation, Burundi, with the other four partner states is set for increased trade and development. One of the major challenges for Burundi has been that it is the only EAC country with the predominance of the French language. Since 2012, TradeMark Africa (TMA) has been supporting the Ministry at the Presidency in Charge of the East African Community Affairs,to establish and implement a two year project titled ‘Enhancing...