By J.S. Held Africa Advisory
In November, the East African Community (EAC) will celebrate its 25th anniversary. Initially established as a three-country club made up of Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, the EAC has since grown to an eight-member bloc stretching from the Indian to the Atlantic Ocean.
Despite having already experienced rapid expansion, the EAC’s ambitions continue to grow. The EAC Secretariat is actively courting Ethiopia to join the bloc – a move which would see it displace or match Kenya as the largest economy in the grouping. Somalia, the EAC’s youngest member having joined in March, is gearing up to deepen its integration with other EAC states by overhauling its distinct legal regime. And in March, the presidents of the EAC’s founding members agreed to fast-track their initial vision of converting what is currently a trade bloc into a full federation.
Yet even as leaders in the EAC set their sights on grander visions of economic cooperation, the question of to what extent the region’s infrastructure can support these aspirations remains. In June, EAC officials met in Nairobi for a week-long session on Somalia’s integration. Central to the discussion was the role Somalia will play as a user and co-developer of EAC regional infrastructure.
However, delegates privately raised concerns over whether the EAC’s infrastructure can support the addition of new members like Somalia. That is, has the bloc expanded too quickly at the expense of meaningful integration? The UN’s Africa Regional Integration Index (ARII) classifies the EAC as the continent’s most deeply intertwined bloc. But it also identifies infrastructure as a weak point and the most recent measures from 2020 do not capture the accession of the DRC or Somalia. The African Development Bank’s Africa Infrastructure Development Index (AIDI) similarly raises red flags on the bloc, noting that while its collective infrastructure is comparatively good, individual members like South Sudan fall to the bottom of the ranking. Indeed, the World Bank estimates that less than 60 percent of the population has access to all-weather roads in Uganda, Tanzania, DRC, and South Sudan.
For all this renewed political momentum, then, there remains significant unrealised potential that continued investment in infrastructure can unlock. Fortunately, the public and private sectors clearly recognise this developmental imperative, with governments and businesses stepping up in recent months.
In May, EAC members met to revitalise discussions around a regional standard gauge railway (SGR) network with governments committing to accelerate long overdue projects. Uganda is in the late stages of moving forward with its debut SGR section connecting Kampala with the border town of Malaba. Turkey’s Yapi Merkezi looks set to deliver the project and is already on-site across Tanzania’s emerging network alongside Portugal’s Mota-Engil and the China Railway Construction Corporation. Tanzania began testing its Dar es Salaam-Morogoro route this year and is progressing on the remaining four sections of its network. Kenya claims to have secured financial backing to complete its connection between Naivasha and Uganda, establishing a direct connection between the latter and Mombasa Port.
Mombasa itself is also set for a facelift as Kenya engages companies on managing and upgrading key terminals. Tanzania, Somalia, and the DRC are speeding ahead in the meantime with the likes of the UAE’s DP World and Switzerland’s Mediterranean Shipping Company moving in to develop seaports and hinterland infrastructure in all three.
Mega projects aside, however, much of the EAC’s goods will move by truck and most of its population will need roads to properly benefit from large port and rail developments. In this area it is regional players which are leading the way. For example, Uganda’s DOTT SERVICES has constructed almost 1,200 km of all-weather roads across Tanzania and Uganda. This includes the pivotal cross-border Kasindi-Beni-Butembo and Bunagana-Rutshuru-Goma connectors currently under construction between Uganda and the DRC. A truly East African firm, it is looking to grow its portfolio in the challenging DRC and South Sudanese markets in the coming years, a move which will have a significant positive impact on these countries’ ability to export and import goods.
In addition to generating immediate benefits in the form of indigenous employment, skills development, and use of local material, projects undertaken by infrastructure firms such as DOTT SERVICES promise significant positive spillovers long into the future. They are essential pillars to the EAC’s regional integration as well as the trade relationships which underpin it. Financing and coordination may well present roadblocks along the way, but EAC governments must continue to push for deeper regional connectivity to maximise local growth opportunities.