The Entry of Burundi and Rwanda: New Opportunities and Challenges for East Africa Community
Abstract
The East African Community has outlived its skeptics SInce its revival in 2000. In addition to its continued existence, the community has grown from a three states membership to five when Burundi and Rwanda joined in 2007. This study highlights what this enlargement means to the region in economic, social and political spheres.
The study's findings reveal how instrumental the community has been in the increasing intra-regional trade and points out which areas still need to be given more attention in order to gamer even greater success. The study gives some insights on the trend of investment inflow in the region and investigates how the enlargement of the membership has influenced this trend in terms investment flows, labour mobility, social and political factors.
The study uses descriptive research design, relying on both primary and secondary data. In gathering primary data, in-depth interviews and questionnaires were used on key informants. For secondary data, the study utilized available books, journals, articles, reports, unpublished works, websites and government documents.our findings enable us to make informed conclusions and recommendations with regards to the current pace of integration in EAC and its future enlargements. As the EAC looks forward to deeper integration through a monetary union, common currency and a federation government in the near future and as it consider the application of other potential members like Southern Sudan, this study will prove a resourceful reference to the subject of integration in the region.
Publisher
University of Nairobi, Kenya