The regional intergovernmental organization, the East African Community (EAC) receives a grant support of 1m USD from the African Capacity Building Foundation (ACFB) in an agreement signed on Monday May 11th at the African Union Headquarters here in Addis Abeba.
The EAC was established aiming at widening and deepening co-operation among the Partner Statesin political, economic and social fields for mutual benefit. However its effort to drive the new phase of the bloc’s integration process, which targets to make its custom union and Common Market Protocols operational, has been hampered by its unsatisfactory institutional capacity status. The ACFB grant is expected to help strengthen EAC’s organizational capacity in striving to achieve its goals.
The Treaty for forming of the East African Community was signed on 30 November 1999 and entered into force on 7 July 2000 following its ratification by the original three Partner States – Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. Currently it also includes the Republics of Burundi and Rwanda as member states and covers a total area of 1.82 million sq. km including water. As of 2014 its population is more than 143 million and its annual GDP is 110.3 billion USD. It is headquartered in Arusha, Tanzania.
Found in response to the severity of Africa’s capacity needs, and the challenges of investing in indigenous human capital and institutions in sub-Saharan Africa, the ACFB, works in building and strengthening sustainable indigenous capacity for macroeconomic policy analysis and development throughout sub-Saharan Africa. It also provides support for regional initiatives in the area of research and training such as the Regional Economic Communities.
The ACFB works with multi-lateral partners like the World Bank, African Development Bank and International Monetary Fund as well as non-regional and African partners.
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