4

The Challenges of Regional

Integration in the East Africa
Community
Patricia Mukiri Mwithiga

JEL Codes: F54, F59, F51.

Keywords: development, East African Community, political federa-
tion, regional integration.

1 Introduction

Regional integration refers to the process of states coming together to

sign agreements where they agree to cooperate in certain areas common
to them. This process is overseen by the governments of the specific
states. Regional cooperation can take different forms which depend on
the objectives of the states that are involved.1 States may want to come
together for economic reasons or even further to form a political alli-
ance or union. History shows that many states across the globe enter
into regional agreements for economic purposes. In Africa in particular,
there has been a clamor and trend towards integration with numerous
regional blocs being formed in various regions of the continent. The
Africa Union recognizes seven Regional Economic Communities (REC
namely: (i) Arab Maghreb Union (AMU), (ii) Common Market for Eastern
and Southern Africa (COMESA), (iii) Community for Sahel-Saharan
States (CEN-SAD), (iv) East Africa Community (EAC), (v) Economic
Community of Central Africa States (ECCAS), (vi) Intergovernmental
Authority on Development (IGAD), and (vii) Southern African
Development Community (SADC).
Other than for economic reasons, a decision to enter a REC may be
based on other considerations such as the coming together of differ-
ent sovereign states based on shared cultural, political, economic, and
societal values as well as a shared history of association or coopera-
tion. This was the case with the SADC where the member states firmly

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© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited 2015
90 Patricia Mukiri Mwithiga

showed their conviction to abolish apartheid. Furthermore, geographi-

cal boundaries strengthen the formation of RECs due to the common
values and history between neighboring countries.
However, the most significant consideration in joining a REC is the
economic benefit that each individual nation derives. In Africa for
example, RECs are perceived as an engine to overcome the constraint
of small economies. The small size of African economies is seen as one
of the reasons that hampers their ability to industrialize effectively.2
The idea behind regional integration has been that intra-African trade
would facilitate structural transformation and accelerate the economic
and social development of African states. Sovereign states that form or
join a REC also view it as a way to increase their bargaining power in a
globalized world dominated by a hegemony.
More than the economic aspects, regional integration can also be
looked at from the angle of a progressive, dynamic process that entails
a country’s willingness to share or unify into a larger whole. The degree
to which it shares and what it shares determines the level of integration.
There are different degrees of integration depending on pre-defined cri-
teria. Regional integration demands that a state relinquish a part of its
sovereignty willingly in order to be part of a larger group. The fear of
the loss of sovereignty is one of the greatest impediments to regional
integration.
To understand the regional integration challenges in the EAC, we
must study its past attempts at regional integration up to its present
state as a common market and its aspiration to become a political fed-
eration. The focus is on both the EAC I, which was officially formed
in 1967 only to disintegrate in 1977, and the now reconstituted EAC,
formed on July 7, 2000, after the ratification of the EAC Treaty.

2 Background to the research problem

The East Africa region has traditionally had ties because of the presence
of some ethnic groups in more than one country, such as the Masai
of Tanzania and Kenya and the Luo in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Prior to colonization, the region was a borderless. The people of the area
had for centuries interacted with one another through trade and other
socio-economic activities. The earliest formal effort at cooperation can
be traced to the 1924 Ormsby-Gore Commission that was sent to East
Africa to consider the viability of establishing a unified policy in the
area. It is important to note however that the British had already cre-
ated an East African currency in 1905 and a postal union in 1911.3 In