CNN is marking 25 incredible years of Larry King Live. Donald Trump turned the tables on Larry King in a commemorative interview on CNN fielding questions from a diverse audience of people he has interviewed over the years from Lionel Ritchie to Marlon Brando. Questions regarding his favourite interview, why he favours suspenders, his endurance on the show were all put to the 'King of talk television'. They showed a snippet of an interview he had with Marlon Brando a few days before he died.Marlon Brando had been out of the public eye for ages at the time and we see him give Larry a kiss,presumably for the unique rapport he strikes with his guest.
I first watched Larry in 1992 when CNN broadcasts were pionnered in Uganda. I became an instant fan even when when I was just a teenage secondary school kid.
Larry King is a gifted interviewer and there is no one like him on television. Even years of training would not produce a Larry King. He simply has got it. He is comfortable talking to a rocket scientist as he is talking to Snoop Doggy Dogg. His staying power is truly remarkable.
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Friday, May 21, 2010
The East African Com mon Currency and the Greek Cautionary Tale
Greek tragedies are eminent in world literature and now, they seem instructive for common currencies around the world. Advocates of an East African Common currency (who now include the IMF)should take pointers from Greece and the european union.
Greece's national debt is threatening to bring down the eurozone (and the rest of the global economy)analysts have already written eulogies for the euro. Harvards' Niall Ferguson has penned an article in he has entitled 'The End of the Euro'. Greece is reportedly in debt by as much as 15% of GDP.
It would seem that the British have, for now, been vindicated for passing up the euro in favour of the pound. The fear is that if of one of the common currency countries has a messy fiscal and economic policy then the economic impact will spread to other members like a cancer. That when in a common currency, its not enough to worry about your own books but your neighbour because he could unwittingly bring you down.
Greece has already accepted a billion-dollar IMF loan and a German-led rescue loan to save it from financial catastrophe which even its severly austere measures have not been able to cure in the short term.
For East Africans, its time to look at the downside of a common currency given the Greek lesson and to be cautious in fast tracking the East African common currency. All East African member countries have to be prudent economic policy managers and fiscal disciplinarians otherwise the sins of own will be borne by all. If Burundi, for instance, is grappling with a huge national deficit then this will impact on other East African common currency countries.
The Greek tragedy is a cautionary tale for East Africa's planned common currency.
Greece's national debt is threatening to bring down the eurozone (and the rest of the global economy)analysts have already written eulogies for the euro. Harvards' Niall Ferguson has penned an article in he has entitled 'The End of the Euro'. Greece is reportedly in debt by as much as 15% of GDP.
It would seem that the British have, for now, been vindicated for passing up the euro in favour of the pound. The fear is that if of one of the common currency countries has a messy fiscal and economic policy then the economic impact will spread to other members like a cancer. That when in a common currency, its not enough to worry about your own books but your neighbour because he could unwittingly bring you down.
Greece has already accepted a billion-dollar IMF loan and a German-led rescue loan to save it from financial catastrophe which even its severly austere measures have not been able to cure in the short term.
For East Africans, its time to look at the downside of a common currency given the Greek lesson and to be cautious in fast tracking the East African common currency. All East African member countries have to be prudent economic policy managers and fiscal disciplinarians otherwise the sins of own will be borne by all. If Burundi, for instance, is grappling with a huge national deficit then this will impact on other East African common currency countries.
The Greek tragedy is a cautionary tale for East Africa's planned common currency.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Scaling down International AIDS Funding is Tragic.
The International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC) has released an April 2010 report that shows that internation funding for AIDS treatment has been scaled down or 'flat-lined' by the most important global funders who include the Global Fund and the PEPFAR(US President's'Emergency Fund for AIDS relief.
But national governments in Africa too are to blame for not meeting their own Health Spending targets set in Abuja in 2001 for funding health funding commitments of at least 15% of their annual budgets.
Dr John Mugyenyi of the JCRC(Joint Clinical Research Council) of Uganda has reported that many AIDS treatment providers across Africa are not enrolling any new patients on anti retroviral treatment programmes(despite the increase in demand for treatment). He also reports that rationing of ARVs is already in effect by some ART providers which compromises treatment and drug adherence and therefore raises fears of drug resistance. Millions of lives are at risk unless funding is matched with the incremental need for AIDS treatment.
Drug resistance is an even graver threat because it calls for second-line drugs that are much more costly and are not as readily available in developing countries, even commercially.
Cut backs in funding from international donors due to cited 'global credit crunch' and a lack of political will in African countries risks the lives of millions which may result in needless deaths.
But national governments in Africa too are to blame for not meeting their own Health Spending targets set in Abuja in 2001 for funding health funding commitments of at least 15% of their annual budgets.
Dr John Mugyenyi of the JCRC(Joint Clinical Research Council) of Uganda has reported that many AIDS treatment providers across Africa are not enrolling any new patients on anti retroviral treatment programmes(despite the increase in demand for treatment). He also reports that rationing of ARVs is already in effect by some ART providers which compromises treatment and drug adherence and therefore raises fears of drug resistance. Millions of lives are at risk unless funding is matched with the incremental need for AIDS treatment.
Drug resistance is an even graver threat because it calls for second-line drugs that are much more costly and are not as readily available in developing countries, even commercially.
Cut backs in funding from international donors due to cited 'global credit crunch' and a lack of political will in African countries risks the lives of millions which may result in needless deaths.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
A National Treasure Goes Up in Flames.An Obituary for Kasubi Tombs
Kasubi Tombs, the burial site for ancient Buganda kings,the Kampala-based UNESCO heritage site has gone up in flames. It was reduced to ashes before my very eyes on live television Tuesday evening. The tombs were said to be 200 years old and the resting places of four kings of the ancient Buganda Kingdom. Reportedly set up in 1910 by the then King Mutesa I, the tombs have been a source of pride not only for enthnic Baganda but all Ugandans alike and I like to believe they were a national treasure which sadly we could afford to pass on to the next generations of Ugandans.
I watched as hundreds of youths cried helplessly infront of the raging flames as an ancient treasure of many years went up in smoke.
One was only left to wonder how the tombs which are only a few kilometres from the city centre couldnt be reached within minutes by the Kampala City fire Brigade. Was this just another case of the widespread public services incompetence and negliegence? Why should we be hard on critics who brand our nations failed states? Wasnt this just another illustration of a dysfunctional state?
The Kasubi tombs were a tourist site and a fixture for every foreign visitor to Kampala. They also offered spin-off employment to many as well as the traditional minders who lived on the premises.
I visited the Kasubi tombs as a child and I was in awe of all the traditional regalia that lay for all to see in the tombs and the extravagantly rich Buganda traditional on elegant display.
Many think that Africans have no achitectural heritage and Kasubi Tombs was always there to prove the doubters wrong. Now it is gone for good although an inspiring Facebook group is rallying wellwishers for a rebuilding effort.
The Kasubi Tombs fire is a sad commentary on the state of affairs in our Banana republic and puts to question whether we have a functional state in Uganda. Where was the police in all this?
And was screaming in agony the best the onlookers could do to save the tombs? Why do we spend billions of shillings arranging to host the Queen of England when we cant even afford to keep the country's jewels for the next generation of Ugandans?
I watched as hundreds of youths cried helplessly infront of the raging flames as an ancient treasure of many years went up in smoke.
One was only left to wonder how the tombs which are only a few kilometres from the city centre couldnt be reached within minutes by the Kampala City fire Brigade. Was this just another case of the widespread public services incompetence and negliegence? Why should we be hard on critics who brand our nations failed states? Wasnt this just another illustration of a dysfunctional state?
The Kasubi tombs were a tourist site and a fixture for every foreign visitor to Kampala. They also offered spin-off employment to many as well as the traditional minders who lived on the premises.
I visited the Kasubi tombs as a child and I was in awe of all the traditional regalia that lay for all to see in the tombs and the extravagantly rich Buganda traditional on elegant display.
Many think that Africans have no achitectural heritage and Kasubi Tombs was always there to prove the doubters wrong. Now it is gone for good although an inspiring Facebook group is rallying wellwishers for a rebuilding effort.
The Kasubi Tombs fire is a sad commentary on the state of affairs in our Banana republic and puts to question whether we have a functional state in Uganda. Where was the police in all this?
And was screaming in agony the best the onlookers could do to save the tombs? Why do we spend billions of shillings arranging to host the Queen of England when we cant even afford to keep the country's jewels for the next generation of Ugandans?
Thursday, February 18, 2010
IN THE RACE TO TREAT GLOBAL AIDS ARE WE PUTTING THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE?
‘The drugs are now expiring in our stores across the country because we seem to be pushing to have them but don’t have the expertise to clinically dispense them to the multitude who need them’ a medical doctor in the busy national referral hospital of Mulago in the Ugandan capital, Kampala tells this reporter as he struggles to clear a seemingly endless queue in front of his office in the biting Kampala sun.
Due to increasing international partner funding, anti retroviral drugs are increasingly becoming available in the developing world. International funding such as that from the Global Fund on HIV/AIDS,TB and malaria , the billion-dollar United States President Emergency Fund of AIDS relief programme and access initiatives such as those supported by the Clinton Foundation have made anti retroviral drugs widely available albeit at mostly urban health centres in the developing world.
In Uganda, despite reaching 42% of the population in need of Anti Retroviral Therapy in 2005, the number of those in need of Anti Retroviral Therapy continues to grow each year. It is estimated that there were 270,000 HIV-infected people eligible for anti retroviral therapy in 2007; this number is projected to reach 332,000 in 2012 . The most current figures as of September 2008, from the Ugandan Health Ministry are: 1.1 million infected; 357,000 in need; 43% on active treatment.
But in countries such as Uganda, questions remain regarding the capacity of the health care systems to scale up access to anti retroviral drugs. A few years ago it was reported in East African newspaper that $ 700,000 worth of drugs had expired in Uganda’s National Medical Stores and similar reports, more recently have run in the government-owned daily ’The New Vision’ with reports that some government drug stores across the country were reporting expiry of stocked anti retroviral drugs when thousands of clinically –eligible patients in Uganda are still waiting their turn to access these life-prolonging drugs.
Several recent studies in academic journals suggest that fiscal funding for AIDS treatment is no longer the most important barrier to access to antiretroviral drugs and that health systems in developing countries are the gravest impediment to accessing anti-AIDS drugs to the millions who need them. The notion that financial resources alone will not bring about accelerated access to AIDS treatment in resource-limited settings was emphasized further in a survey conducted in July of 2008 in six countries including Uganda by the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC).
Some observers contend that even if these drugs were suddenly sufficiently available, there wouldn’t be sufficient capacity to absorb them and dispense them to those who need them as concluded in a study led by Dr Konde- Lule a renowned Ugandan AIDS researcher based at Makerere University
Analysts suggests that there are two conflicting schools of thought with one suggesting that scaling up access to ARVs is possible like has happened in Brazil while the other school argues that health care systems in developing countries don’t have the capacity to mount ambitious national AIDS treatment programmes due to institutional resource constraints. It is shown for example that there is a severe deficit in the health workers available to manage Anti Retroviral Therapy in developing countries which has compounded an already existing shortage of medical workers owing to many factors which include brain drain and uncompetitive reward systems.
It has been estimated that while Africa has 25% of the world’s disease burden, it has only 1.3% of the world’s health work force.
The absence of national laboratory networks to manage disease diagnosis-the first step of AIDS treatment, as well as unavailable CD 4 count machines all pose questions as to the feasibility of implementing ambitious AIDS treatment regimes in the developing world .An ART adherence study conducted in Botswana and Tanzania led by University of Amsterdam’s Dr Anita Hardon found a lack of laboratory facilities to conduct CD4 counts at the study sites visited . There was a lack of prescribing capacity in several health centres since they didn’t have diagnostic equipment .The study found that patients had to wait two weeks before they could be put on therapy owing to delays in diagnostic tests.
Interviews with regular clinicians at the fore front of treating AIDS in Uganda suggest the need to question the institutional assumptions underlying contemporary international AIDS treatment funding priorities. Should ARV drugs themselves be the current focus of drugs access initiatives or should the institutional resource base for administering them be the prerogative? A question whose answer would be critical to international bodies such as WHO,UNAIDS,UNICEF,PEPFAR,The Global Fund, The World Bank etc. As well as national governments in AIDS- ravaged countries,NGOs,HIV/AIDS advocacy networks and of course the millions living with HIV/AIDS .In the race to treat global AIDS, are we putting the cart before the horse? Drugs or health systems which should come first?
Due to increasing international partner funding, anti retroviral drugs are increasingly becoming available in the developing world. International funding such as that from the Global Fund on HIV/AIDS,TB and malaria , the billion-dollar United States President Emergency Fund of AIDS relief programme and access initiatives such as those supported by the Clinton Foundation have made anti retroviral drugs widely available albeit at mostly urban health centres in the developing world.
In Uganda, despite reaching 42% of the population in need of Anti Retroviral Therapy in 2005, the number of those in need of Anti Retroviral Therapy continues to grow each year. It is estimated that there were 270,000 HIV-infected people eligible for anti retroviral therapy in 2007; this number is projected to reach 332,000 in 2012 . The most current figures as of September 2008, from the Ugandan Health Ministry are: 1.1 million infected; 357,000 in need; 43% on active treatment.
But in countries such as Uganda, questions remain regarding the capacity of the health care systems to scale up access to anti retroviral drugs. A few years ago it was reported in East African newspaper that $ 700,000 worth of drugs had expired in Uganda’s National Medical Stores and similar reports, more recently have run in the government-owned daily ’The New Vision’ with reports that some government drug stores across the country were reporting expiry of stocked anti retroviral drugs when thousands of clinically –eligible patients in Uganda are still waiting their turn to access these life-prolonging drugs.
Several recent studies in academic journals suggest that fiscal funding for AIDS treatment is no longer the most important barrier to access to antiretroviral drugs and that health systems in developing countries are the gravest impediment to accessing anti-AIDS drugs to the millions who need them. The notion that financial resources alone will not bring about accelerated access to AIDS treatment in resource-limited settings was emphasized further in a survey conducted in July of 2008 in six countries including Uganda by the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC).
Some observers contend that even if these drugs were suddenly sufficiently available, there wouldn’t be sufficient capacity to absorb them and dispense them to those who need them as concluded in a study led by Dr Konde- Lule a renowned Ugandan AIDS researcher based at Makerere University
Analysts suggests that there are two conflicting schools of thought with one suggesting that scaling up access to ARVs is possible like has happened in Brazil while the other school argues that health care systems in developing countries don’t have the capacity to mount ambitious national AIDS treatment programmes due to institutional resource constraints. It is shown for example that there is a severe deficit in the health workers available to manage Anti Retroviral Therapy in developing countries which has compounded an already existing shortage of medical workers owing to many factors which include brain drain and uncompetitive reward systems.
It has been estimated that while Africa has 25% of the world’s disease burden, it has only 1.3% of the world’s health work force.
The absence of national laboratory networks to manage disease diagnosis-the first step of AIDS treatment, as well as unavailable CD 4 count machines all pose questions as to the feasibility of implementing ambitious AIDS treatment regimes in the developing world .An ART adherence study conducted in Botswana and Tanzania led by University of Amsterdam’s Dr Anita Hardon found a lack of laboratory facilities to conduct CD4 counts at the study sites visited . There was a lack of prescribing capacity in several health centres since they didn’t have diagnostic equipment .The study found that patients had to wait two weeks before they could be put on therapy owing to delays in diagnostic tests.
Interviews with regular clinicians at the fore front of treating AIDS in Uganda suggest the need to question the institutional assumptions underlying contemporary international AIDS treatment funding priorities. Should ARV drugs themselves be the current focus of drugs access initiatives or should the institutional resource base for administering them be the prerogative? A question whose answer would be critical to international bodies such as WHO,UNAIDS,UNICEF,PEPFAR,The Global Fund, The World Bank etc. As well as national governments in AIDS- ravaged countries,NGOs,HIV/AIDS advocacy networks and of course the millions living with HIV/AIDS .In the race to treat global AIDS, are we putting the cart before the horse? Drugs or health systems which should come first?
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
ARE REPORTS OF THE DECLINE OF U.S. GLOBAL POWER EXAGGARATED?
‘More than any other nation, the United States of America has underwritten global security for over six decades-a time that, for all its problems, has seen walls come down, markets open, billions lifted from poverty, unparalleled scientific progress, and advancing frontiers of human liberty’ President Obama, in a recent speech ,reflected on the US’s role in the world in the past half century.
But is the United States’ global power, influence and leadership on the decline? Persistent voices from strategic think tanks around the world and from within the United States it self suggest that there is an emerging consensus that US global leadership and its global hegemony in general is severely under threat and slipping steadily.
British academic, Martin Jacques has authored a new book with a telling title When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order he estimates that over the next half-century, China will emerge as the world’s leading power and that there is a shift of power from the west to the East. Analysts project that by 2025, Asia will be home to three of the five largest economies in the world.
In another thoughtful piece, Japanese analyst Hitoshi Tanaka, author of The Crisis of Global Governance and the Rise of East Asia argues that US leadership of the world has slipped for reasons that include the disastrous foreign policy of former US president George W. Bush, including the costly invasion of Iraq, the continuing costly war in Afghanistan in military and economic terms which Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria estimates will cost $ 2 Trillion by the end 2011, have taken their toll. Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz puts the cost of the US debacle in Iraq at $ 3 trillion.
One would add that the current global financial crisis and the declining US economy have not helped matters either and exposed the vulnerability of the US economy which has reportedly shrank – the engine of US geopolitical capability and prestige.
‘The US’s net external debt climbed by more than $1.3 trillion in 2008 alone and is expected to reach almost $ 3.5 trillion by the end of this year. ..Unless the U.S. quickly achieves and maintains a sustainable economic position, its ability to pursue autonomous economic and foreign policies will become increasingly compromised’ notes Fred Bergsten in Foreign Policy.
The US has borrowed excessively from China to finance President Obama’s stimulus measures to shore up the US economy which is showing faint signs of revival.
TIME magazine reports that the US owes China $ 763.5 billion in US Treasury department debt.
Signaling an emerging new world order, China has publicly called for the replacement of the United States dollar as the world’s reserve currency owing to perceptions of a long-term weakening US economy. China has threatened to introduce a new global reserve currency called’ the renminbi’ to replace the US dollar. China’s increasing importance is exemplified in its influence in the current global financial crisis. it is viewed as the ’primary driver of global economic growth’. Indeed recently reported economic growth in China was interpreted as a more optimistic outlook for the rest of the world economy.
According to Newsweek China is slated to surpass Japan this year as the second largest economy in the world.
The rise of China, analysts suggest, has altered the world order and will see the declining influence of the Group of 8 countries (G8) of US, UK, Canada, France Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia and in their place the G2, China and US. President Obama has said that Washington and Beijing will shape the 21st Century.
In regard to the U.S. and China, Daniel Drezner talks of the former and later respectively as ‘a declining hegemony with the willingness but not the capability to act as the global leader, combined with a rising power with the capability but not the willingness to act as a global leader’.
I would add that the rise of Arab states such as United Arab Emirates and Qatar with their burgeoning financial muscle from oil wealth and astute economic policy have added another dimension to the global balance of power scene. Arab financiers have bought a handful of English Premiership football clubs such as Manchester City and Portsmouth. It was reported that an Arab consortium bought a 25% stake in Germany’s Mercedes Benz group. In Uganda, telecom giants Zain and Warid are testimony to the growing financial influence of the orient in world business.
So, is US power really on the decline? Mark Twain, a writer, was prematurely announced dead and on reading his obituary remarked thus ’The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated’.
But is the United States’ global power, influence and leadership on the decline? Persistent voices from strategic think tanks around the world and from within the United States it self suggest that there is an emerging consensus that US global leadership and its global hegemony in general is severely under threat and slipping steadily.
British academic, Martin Jacques has authored a new book with a telling title When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order he estimates that over the next half-century, China will emerge as the world’s leading power and that there is a shift of power from the west to the East. Analysts project that by 2025, Asia will be home to three of the five largest economies in the world.
In another thoughtful piece, Japanese analyst Hitoshi Tanaka, author of The Crisis of Global Governance and the Rise of East Asia argues that US leadership of the world has slipped for reasons that include the disastrous foreign policy of former US president George W. Bush, including the costly invasion of Iraq, the continuing costly war in Afghanistan in military and economic terms which Newsweek’s Fareed Zakaria estimates will cost $ 2 Trillion by the end 2011, have taken their toll. Nobel Prize economist Joseph Stiglitz puts the cost of the US debacle in Iraq at $ 3 trillion.
One would add that the current global financial crisis and the declining US economy have not helped matters either and exposed the vulnerability of the US economy which has reportedly shrank – the engine of US geopolitical capability and prestige.
‘The US’s net external debt climbed by more than $1.3 trillion in 2008 alone and is expected to reach almost $ 3.5 trillion by the end of this year. ..Unless the U.S. quickly achieves and maintains a sustainable economic position, its ability to pursue autonomous economic and foreign policies will become increasingly compromised’ notes Fred Bergsten in Foreign Policy.
The US has borrowed excessively from China to finance President Obama’s stimulus measures to shore up the US economy which is showing faint signs of revival.
TIME magazine reports that the US owes China $ 763.5 billion in US Treasury department debt.
Signaling an emerging new world order, China has publicly called for the replacement of the United States dollar as the world’s reserve currency owing to perceptions of a long-term weakening US economy. China has threatened to introduce a new global reserve currency called’ the renminbi’ to replace the US dollar. China’s increasing importance is exemplified in its influence in the current global financial crisis. it is viewed as the ’primary driver of global economic growth’. Indeed recently reported economic growth in China was interpreted as a more optimistic outlook for the rest of the world economy.
According to Newsweek China is slated to surpass Japan this year as the second largest economy in the world.
The rise of China, analysts suggest, has altered the world order and will see the declining influence of the Group of 8 countries (G8) of US, UK, Canada, France Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia and in their place the G2, China and US. President Obama has said that Washington and Beijing will shape the 21st Century.
In regard to the U.S. and China, Daniel Drezner talks of the former and later respectively as ‘a declining hegemony with the willingness but not the capability to act as the global leader, combined with a rising power with the capability but not the willingness to act as a global leader’.
I would add that the rise of Arab states such as United Arab Emirates and Qatar with their burgeoning financial muscle from oil wealth and astute economic policy have added another dimension to the global balance of power scene. Arab financiers have bought a handful of English Premiership football clubs such as Manchester City and Portsmouth. It was reported that an Arab consortium bought a 25% stake in Germany’s Mercedes Benz group. In Uganda, telecom giants Zain and Warid are testimony to the growing financial influence of the orient in world business.
So, is US power really on the decline? Mark Twain, a writer, was prematurely announced dead and on reading his obituary remarked thus ’The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated’.
Monday, November 30, 2009
The Dream of One East Africa is a Distant one
The East African common market was signed in Arusha,Tanzania a few days ago but as I noted during my travels through East Africa recently the road to one East Africa is still a long one.
The East African community doesn’t apply here, the immigration official at this Northern Tanzanian airport barked out at my attempt to seek a more East African reception with my Ugandan passport as I processed my entry into Tanzania recently. My illusion of a concretising vision of one East Africa was swiftly and rudely dashed. I decided to take a road trip back from Arusha to Kampala on return to see for myself how the dream of one East Africa is shaping up and was instead greeted with four immigration desks within Kenya and Tanzania. Waiting at any of these desks doesn’t make you feel any less foreign than say, the Australian standing next in line. The sense you get travelling in East Africa particularly in Kenya and Tanzania is that ordinary citizens in these countries don’t share the passion of their national leaders or at least their rhetoric when it comes to integrating into one East Africa.Even the strategic importance of one East Africa and that this drive for one East Africa is largely a top down vision which hasn’t yet found popular acceptance among your regular East African. Mobilising popular support among the citizenry of the member countries will be critical to any integration efforts. It should not be taken for granted that East Africans are for one East Africa. The current leaders are transitory and for this vision to be sustainable it has to take root within the populations of the member countries. The East African, in its latest issue, reports that Uganda manufacturers are making efforts to stall the East African common market for as long as they can because they loath the ‘blue band’ effect or the avalanche of Kenyan products in their domestic markets once the East African common market comes into effect. Tanzania has already put road blocks on the proposal for an East African common market. The future is in integration because small states are not viable and can no longer compete in an integrating world with countries the size of India and China which is why the Europeans are pushing for the highest possible union among themselves amidst these global blocks. I often find it ridiculous that a country the size of Uganda will compete on the same terms with countries such as the United States or China at the Olympics, the World Cup and yes, at the World Trade Organisation or at the United Nations given their clearly superior resource pool, economic, human and otherwise. That a country with the clout of Germany or France will seek strength in the wider European Union only tells you that countries like Uganda or Kenya need the East African community because on their own they can’t compete favourably. The current African political boundaries were established as a colonial convenience during the scramble and partition of Africa and countries such as Rwanda and Burundi were carved out as tokens to Belgium and in the case of DR Congo, as personal property of Belgian King Leopold. Most current African states have small markets that can’t support their home industries.Travelling in East Africa also illuminates the infrastructural impediments that stand in the way of the realisation of the full potential of integration. Only a leadership failure to grasp the strategic questions confronting their countries would explain why the road from the border town of Namanga in northern Tanzania to the now regional town of Arusha is not tarmacked. This road is clearly a lifeline for north-eastern Tanzania. For starters, Nairobi, in geographic proximity terms, is nearer Arusha than Dar-es-Salaam. On the way to Arusha, you meet several petroleum and other goods' trailers from Nairobi pointing to the economic importance of this route but you will be surprised that this route is not tarmacked. Paradoxically, it is easier to call Britain from our countries than say Burundi. In the words of Martin Luther King, ‘I have a dream’ that one day East Africans will walk the same road as fellow countrymen and realise that their destiny is one and the same.
The East African community doesn’t apply here, the immigration official at this Northern Tanzanian airport barked out at my attempt to seek a more East African reception with my Ugandan passport as I processed my entry into Tanzania recently. My illusion of a concretising vision of one East Africa was swiftly and rudely dashed. I decided to take a road trip back from Arusha to Kampala on return to see for myself how the dream of one East Africa is shaping up and was instead greeted with four immigration desks within Kenya and Tanzania. Waiting at any of these desks doesn’t make you feel any less foreign than say, the Australian standing next in line. The sense you get travelling in East Africa particularly in Kenya and Tanzania is that ordinary citizens in these countries don’t share the passion of their national leaders or at least their rhetoric when it comes to integrating into one East Africa.Even the strategic importance of one East Africa and that this drive for one East Africa is largely a top down vision which hasn’t yet found popular acceptance among your regular East African. Mobilising popular support among the citizenry of the member countries will be critical to any integration efforts. It should not be taken for granted that East Africans are for one East Africa. The current leaders are transitory and for this vision to be sustainable it has to take root within the populations of the member countries. The East African, in its latest issue, reports that Uganda manufacturers are making efforts to stall the East African common market for as long as they can because they loath the ‘blue band’ effect or the avalanche of Kenyan products in their domestic markets once the East African common market comes into effect. Tanzania has already put road blocks on the proposal for an East African common market. The future is in integration because small states are not viable and can no longer compete in an integrating world with countries the size of India and China which is why the Europeans are pushing for the highest possible union among themselves amidst these global blocks. I often find it ridiculous that a country the size of Uganda will compete on the same terms with countries such as the United States or China at the Olympics, the World Cup and yes, at the World Trade Organisation or at the United Nations given their clearly superior resource pool, economic, human and otherwise. That a country with the clout of Germany or France will seek strength in the wider European Union only tells you that countries like Uganda or Kenya need the East African community because on their own they can’t compete favourably. The current African political boundaries were established as a colonial convenience during the scramble and partition of Africa and countries such as Rwanda and Burundi were carved out as tokens to Belgium and in the case of DR Congo, as personal property of Belgian King Leopold. Most current African states have small markets that can’t support their home industries.Travelling in East Africa also illuminates the infrastructural impediments that stand in the way of the realisation of the full potential of integration. Only a leadership failure to grasp the strategic questions confronting their countries would explain why the road from the border town of Namanga in northern Tanzania to the now regional town of Arusha is not tarmacked. This road is clearly a lifeline for north-eastern Tanzania. For starters, Nairobi, in geographic proximity terms, is nearer Arusha than Dar-es-Salaam. On the way to Arusha, you meet several petroleum and other goods' trailers from Nairobi pointing to the economic importance of this route but you will be surprised that this route is not tarmacked. Paradoxically, it is easier to call Britain from our countries than say Burundi. In the words of Martin Luther King, ‘I have a dream’ that one day East Africans will walk the same road as fellow countrymen and realise that their destiny is one and the same.
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