Germany grants Sh92bn for EAC projects

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“Focus of our cooperation lie in the areas of economic integration and the health sector. Additionally, we also support individual EAC statres bilaterally in a wide range of sectors”, said the German Ambassador to Tanzania Detlef Wachter.

        Arusha. Germany granted the East African Community (EAC) 35 million Euros (about Sh92 billion) for vaccination and scholarship programmes yesterday, making its contribution to the bloc in the last 20 years reach to 285 million Euros.

“Focus of our cooperation lie in the areas of economic integration and the health sector. Additionally, we also support individual EAC statres bilaterally in a wide range of sectors”, said the German Ambassador to Tanzania Detlef Wachter.

He was speaking during the signing ceremony at the EAC headquarters which includes 30m Euros for the immunization programme targeting to immunize every child and 5m Euros for the scholarship programme.

The latter programme would be implemented in cooperation with the Inter-University Council of East Africa (IUCEA), an institution under the Community.

“The goal of this programme is to promote EAC’s regional integration agenda by supporting higher education students, creating social change as well as economic growth”, he said.

Yesterday’s signing of the agreement brings Germany’s total contribution to the EAC immunization programmes since they were initiated a few years ago to a total of 120m Euros. “The new committments underline that Germany continues to be a strong partner for the EAC in pushing the integration progress forward. Education and health are core pillars for sustainable economic development”, Dr. Wachter added. According to the EAC secretary general Liberat Mfumukeko, the two regional programmes (immunization and education) would be implemented in collaboration with the German Development Bank (KfW). “The main objective of the immunization programme is to support the EAC partner states to adopt and scale up new and underutilized vaccines namely Rota Virus, Pneumococcal and Penttavalent vaccines”, he said.