How the Kampala Agreement of 1960s foreshadowed a different EAC regional future
President Samia Suluhu Hassan, poses for a photo with her guest, Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, shortly after his arrival at State House in Dar es Salaam on February 7, 2026. PHOTO | STATE HOUSE
Dar es Salaam. In the long and uneven history of East African integration, few documents are as consequential and as overlooked as the Kampala Agreement of the mid-1960s.
Drafted at a moment when newly independent states were grappling with inherited colonial economies and divergent national ambitions, the agreement sought to resolve a problem that continues to haunt the region today: how to integrate economically without reproducing inequality.
