The East Africa region covers 13 countries with overlapping memberships in 4 African Union-recognized regional economic communities. These regional economic communities are the; Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA); the East African Community (EAC), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The 13 countries are; Burundi, Comoros, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Rwanda, Seychelles, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.

East Africa has been the continent’s fastest-growing region in recent years. It is home to several of the fastest-growing economies, including Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. In 2020, Tanzania became the latest country in the region to graduate from low-income to middle-income status, joining three of its neighbours in the World Bank’s lower middle-income category – Kenya, Comoros and Djibouti.

The region’s growth rate averaged 4.9% in 2018 and 5.3% in 2019, compared with 3.3% and 3.4% in Africa overall. However, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the region’s growth rate fell to 0.7% in 2020, but remained well above Africa’s overall slump of -2.1%, making the region the only one in Africa to have avoided a recession amidst the pandemic.

East Africa’s resilience in 2020 was buoyed by positive economic growth rates in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Kenya and Djibouti, supported by a more diversified service sector, sustained public spending on large infrastructure projects and a good performance in agriculture, trade and tourism.

East African countries are investing heavily in regional structural transformation projects and also focusing on strengthening the policy and institutional frameworks for market integration, investment, and the development of value chains for the future of the East African economical power.

Priority agenda is:

1. Transport corridors to connect markets and link landlocked countries to their regional neighbours and seaports.

2. One-stop border posts to reduce border delays and associated trade costs.

3. Power interconnectors to enable countries that have more electricity to trade with those that have less.

4. Feasibility studies to prepare bankable regional infrastructure projects.

In March 2021, the African Development Bank, overall active portfolio in East Africa stood at $13 billion for the above agendas. Multinational and regional operations comprised 97 projects with 121 financing instruments worth $4.3 billion, roughly 33% of the portfolio, while the rest are national operations.

East Africa is growing in the fastest paste the region has ever seen and overcoming neighbouring regions in the continents. This is the best opportunity for international companies, investors and entrepreneurs to share their products, services and technologies to help the East African Community to thrive and to become the biggest business hub in Africa.