Fourteen youth from across East African partner states have vowed to sensitise members of the public on the ongoing integration in the region in a bid to deepen the process.
The youth dubbed EAC ambassadors converged at Naura Springs Hotel in Arusha for a three-day Training of Trainers workshop on Structures, Processes and Regional Integration which wound last Tuesday.
The Best Debaters of the first 2012 EAC University Students’ Debate signed a communiqué indicating their commitment to move forward and devote themselves to the sensitisation and awareness campaigns of the bloc.
The youth promise in their communiqué that they would carry out sensitisation and awareness programmes in collaboration with the EAC secretariat and relevant ministries in their partner states.
They will also partner with organised civil society, private sector and local governments to widen, deepen and strengthen the awareness campaigns, they said.
To begin with, they will establish a national and regional youth consultative roundtable for the Best Debater and Youth Leaders to coordinate, monitor and support sensitisation and awareness campaigns.
They call on the EAC Secretariat, the EAC partner states and development partners to consider mobilising resources required for the sensitisation and awareness campaigns.
The Best Debaters and Youth Leaders will, among others, identify and strengthen existing youth programmes whose pursuit contributes to the development of the region.
They will also promote joint and individual cross-border activities to enable East Africans become drivers of the regional integration process. They will further organise and roll out EAC Youth Clubs dubbed Model East African Community (MEAC) for secondary and university campuses in each partner state.
The EAC Youth Ambassadors programme, which is the brainchild of the EAC secretariat in collaboration with the GIZ and Gopa, aims at supporting the regional integration process through sensitisation and awareness campaign programmes.
The objective of the sensitisation and awareness programmes is to implement one of the fundamental principles provided for in Article 7 of the Treaty for the Establishment of the EAC which says the community is people-driven.
Youth being key stakeholders in the integration, they occupy an important place in the process and in the sensitisation and awareness programmes in particular.
Article 120 of the EAC Treaty also emphasises the need for developing and adopting a common approach towards disadvantaged and marginalised groups through rehabilitation and provision of, among others, foster homes, health care, education and training.
The groups in question include that of the youth themselves, children, the elderly and persons with disabilities. The participation of citizens is fundamentally interdependent on reinforcing a common East African identity and in deepening and widening the integration process.
The regional integration process entails four pillars namely Customs Union, Common Market, Monetary Union and ultimately, the Political Federation.
The road map for the integration process initially slated for this year could not be met as a result of, among others, lack of information and awareness among citizens and the youth in particular.
East African Cooperation minister Samuel Sitta was recently quoted as blaming the snail’s pace integration process on the partner state leaders’ fear for losing authority.
Observing the East Africans’ right to have timely and correct information and content regarding activities of the integration process, the youth advised the EAC secretariat and relevant ministries to collaborate with them in a bid to realise the people’s needs.
July 1, 2010 goes into the history of the East African integration as the day on which the Common Market came into force.
This is a second stage after Customs Union which aims at eliminating barriers retarding cross-border trade in the region.
Owing to the sensitivity of the stage, the EAC partner states have agreed to integrate gradually to ensure the protocol benefits for each country are sustained. They have devised a schedule to that effect.
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