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EA WHISPERS
By Isaac Mwangi, East African News Agency

How media can hasten integration

EANA) – The media will need to play a critical role if regional integration is to move faster and succeed in bringing benefits to all citizens of the region. It is no longer enough for the media to simply play a secondary role of occasionally reporting about major events by organs of the East African Community and related agencies. The challenge is now to ensure grassroots involvement and to articulate issues of concern to various segments of the population across all the East African countries.

To effectively do this, media practitioners must themselves be deeply knowledgeable of the burning issues and sticking points of integration. They must know the breadth and depth of national concerns, business environment, and challenges faced by each of the five partner states. Even more, they must be able to proactively set the agenda for the entire region and to do so in such a way as to encourage concrete action by leaders while maintaining sensitivity to national needs.

This is in recognition of the fact that if an East African consciousness is to be cultivated at the grassroots level, the media must first come on board. Once there are enough purveyors of information with a solid base of knowledge regarding regional issues and working toward the fulfillment of the integration agenda, we will have achieved a giant leap. The wide network of media in the region is sufficient to make a huge difference in perceptions and attitudes of our people, making the citizens themselves to agitate for even faster integration.

It is for this reason that business journalists and communications specialists from around East Africa recently converged on Arusha for three days of networking. The team specifically focused on the economic aspects of the regional integration process and implementation of the Customs Union and Common Market Protocols.

Sitting through the sessions, one got the distinct feeling that the region as a whole was unsure and hesitant. There is agreement that regional integration is the way to go, but an indescribable immobility holds everyone back. Could it be that we are so used to our nation-states that we don’t want to get immersed into a whole new super-state that we don’t know what to make of? Could it be suspicion of the motives and intentions of other East Africans? Like a man who knows he needs to bathe but cannot get the courage to get under the cold shower, we hold back, perhaps hoping that everything will somehow sort itself out.

This situation was graphically presented by EAC Deputy Secretary General in charge of Planning and Infrastructure Dr Enos Bukuku. While addressing the region’s cream of business leaders at the annual general meeting of the East African Business Council (EABC) on 31st May, Dr Bukuku said that while everyone claimed to be on the road to integration, what they were actually doing on that road deserved some scrutiny. While some vehicles were moving at a snail’s pace, others had stalled on the road, while more were rolling backwards.

In saying this, Dr Bukuku was simply echoing the frustrations of the business community, with outgoing EABC chairman Gerald Ssendaula saying that there was a lot of inertia in implementing the integration agenda, even over things that had already been agreed upon.

The EABC meeting was held on the day following the end of the networking meeting and was attended by the journalists and media specialists who had pitched camp in Arusha throughout that week. Vimal Shah, who was elected the new chairman of the Council, promised to focus on key issues that will further the interests of the business community in the EAC region.

The media, fortunately, will play a key role in this strategy. “We shall endeavour to continue increasing the visibility of the EABC through the implementation of the communication strategy by working closely with the media,” said Mr Shah.

Our leaders have played an important role over the years in coming together and establishing the basic instruments for the integration agenda. They have endorsed various protocols and created an environment of mutual trust among themselves. But they have reached a point of complacency, one where they have simply stalled on the road even as the people cry out for more. It is now upon the media to provide that push that will once again propel the region to move faster toward every form of integration.