EAC now to focus on agriculture - SG

Arusha. In an endeavour to promote economic development in the East African Community (EAC) bloc, more impetus would be given to modernizing the agricultural sector.

This would be done through provision of agricultural inputs, value addition and introduction of appropriate technologies to boost farm yields.

This was affirmed here on Tuesday by EAC secretary general Liberat Mfumukeko when he received credentials of the new German ambassador to the Community Dr Detlef Waechter.

He said EAC's committment to exploit its human and natural resources for the benefit of the entire region, saying already significant achievements had been recorded in trade, customs and infrastructure development.

"Going forward the Community would focus on modernizing the agricultural sector through provision of appropriate farm inputs, value addition and technology", he said.

Mr Mfumukeko, however, regretted that the EAC region has a big population of educated but unemployed youth who must be assisted through increased production activities.

The EAC boss reiterated once again that negotiations for the Tripartite Free Trade Area (TFTA) which will bring together 26 African countries with a market of 600 million people were in an advance stage.

Three regional economic communities in the negotiations are EAC, the Southern Africa Development Community (Sadc) and the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (Comesa).

In his remarks, the German ambassador assured the EAC boss of his country's committment to working closely with the bloc in order to enable the Community attain its objectives in the integration process.

"German is keen to share with the EAC its experiences in the European integration. The EAC could learn from the EU in addressing some of the emerging challenges in the integration process", he pointed out.

Mr Mfumumeko's emphasis on agricultural production in EA comes two months after the bloc signed the EAC Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) Compact.

The Compact is designed to facilitate coordination of regional and cross cutting programmes that complement agricultural programmes and projects at national and regional levels.

The programme details regional development priorities and defines actions, commitments and partnerships required to achieve agricultural transformation in line with the CAADP goals and targets.

CAADP’s overall goal is to use agriculture to eliminate hunger and reduce poverty in Africa.

Through the CAADP agenda, African governments have agreed to increase public investment in agriculture to ten per cent of national budgets per year and to raise and maintain agricultural productivity and annual growth by at least six per cent.