EAC can integrate in more aspects than trade

When EAC Heads of State unveiled a commemorative plaque to officially open the 42.4 kilometer East African Arusha Bypass road in Arusha town, Tanzania. [File, Standard]

Efforts by members of the East African Community to enhance integration are plausible, especially with the possibility of a single currency should East African Monetary Institute (or Central Bank of East Africa) be created this year.

Members Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan will speak one trade language, and with movement made easier by abolishing some Visa requirements, the potential benefits of cross-border trade hang low.

This region, home to beautiful biodiversity in its rich rain and other forests, game reserves, mountains, rivers and the unsecured places, also harbours pastoralists who have previously earned substantial revenue in sale of meat and other animal product. The savanna lands also attract billions in revenue through conservation and tourism. The EAC countries are also some of the most affected by effects of climate change. The current drought in Kenya has been declared the worst in 40 years. Other nations in the region grapple with either conflict, poverty, diseases or political instability.

At the same time, Uganda has just approved the East African Crude Oil Pipeline licence to construct, at the risk of many possible losses, including stranded fossil fuels and assets, and the risk of damaged people's and biodiversity habitats along the 1,445km pipeline. Why allow new fossil fuel projects within the region?

Locally, communities that are merely split by borders, like the Maasai of Tanzania and Kenya, or the Pokot of Uganda and Tanzania, sometimes find ways of dealing with certain climate crises and create resilience. The wildebeest move between Kenya and Tanzania every year. Banks are crossing over to invest in multiple countries and employ people. Telcos and other business entities are not left behind. This region is faced with multiple risks, (some of them climate induced), that spread across the shared borders. They include desertification, land degradation, livestock and crop diseases, high temperatures, reduced fish stocks, crop pollution, bush/forest fires, conflict over shared resources, water stress, flooding and drought, nutrition, energy access, among others.

The worst are those that besides killing people and livestock, damage infrastructure such as roads that are key to movement of farm produce.

These problems are likely to worsen poverty, especially where the poor are drained to the extent of disposing of their ancestral land and other assets to survive. These are some of the problems that knowledge shared across border can help tackle.

Despite the developments in the EAC in terms of trade and movement, a lot more needs to be done through policy frameworks. Such should enable enhancement of the region's infrastructure to withstand harsh weather conditions. This will improve trade and people's nutrition. When Pakistan suffered flooding in 2022, roads, railways, ports, electricity, communications infrastructure were heavily damaged.

The EAC should have a fund that boosts convergence of local climate researchers. We need more local solutions to climate problems. This comes with increased opportunities for researchers and enhanced people driven climate action.

Just like traders, biodiversity, people and resources cross borders, EAC member states' national policies, plans linked to climate change in the countries need to be integrated where necessary, to increase action.

Even if Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) earn individual countries much success in climate action, a binding EAC version of it is also necessary.