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Uganda Regional Organizations
Even before independence, overlapping cultural,
linguistic,
and economic ties, as well as common nationalist
sentiments,
stimulated a desire for East African federation among
Ugandans,
Kenyans, and Tanzanians. A declaration of intent, signed
in 1963,
led to the formation of the East African Community (EAC)
in 1967.
In 1977 the EAC was dissolved, the victim of Ugandan and
Tanzanian fears of Kenyan economic dominance, and, for
different
reasons, Kenyan and Tanzanian government opposition to
Amin.
Despite its brief life, the EAC provided Uganda's deepest
regional involvement since independence. In the Ten-Point
Program, the NRM government bitterly assailed the break-up
of the
EAC, blaming national leaders in all three countries for
their
shortsightedness. Nevertheless, the NRM government chose
to
participate in African organizations that served larger
regions,
rather than to try to resurrect a union limited to the
three East
African states.
Given the importance the NRM attached to African
cooperation,
it was no surprise that its leaders strongly supported
initiatives to build closer economic and developmental
relations
among states in eastern and southern Africa. The Ugandan
government set great store by its membership in the
Preferential
Trade Area (PTA) for East and Southern Africa, which
contained
sixteen member states in Central, Southern, and East
Africa from
Djibouti in the northeast to Zimbabwe in the south. The
PTA's
main purpose was to stimulate regional trade by removing
tariffs
among its member states and by arranging for direct
payment in
their own nonconvertible currencies rather than using
their
reserves of convertible foreign exchange. In December
1987, the
Ugandan government hosted the PTA summit of heads of state
in
Kampala where the decision was taken to eliminate tariffs
among
members by the year 2000. In his address to the United
Nations
(UN) in October 1987, Museveni had predicted that the PTA
would
help to create a single market among member states that
could
sustain industrial development
(see Regional Cooperation
, ch. 3).
The NRM government joined with five other
states--Djibouti,
Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, and Somalia--to form the InterGovernmental Authority on Drought and Development (IGADD)
in
January 1986. The organization intended to coordinate
projects
involving drought, desertification, and agriculture in the
region
and to interest donors in their implementation. In its
first few
years, it did little to accomplish this goal. But it did
serve as
an annual occasion for the heads of member states to meet
and
discuss pressing political issues.
Uganda also joined the Kagera Basin Organization in
1981. The
organization, formed by Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi in
1977,
attempted to promote various development projects in the
Kagera
River Basin but was unable to secure sufficient financing
to make
much progress toward its objectives.
Data as of December 1990
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