Building a Blue Economy Strategy for the East African Community

The blue economy is a vital area of activity for the East African Community (EAC), as it offers opportunities for sustainable economic, social and ecological development and growth. To harness its full potential, the EAC needs a coherent and coordinated strategy and action plan that aligns with the African Union’s strategy, the national priorities and aspirations of its partner states, along the other overlapping regional commitments of the latter.

The office for Eastern Africa of the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) and the EAC organised a two-day regional consultation meeting in Mombasa, Kenya, on 30-31 October 2023, to discuss the Roadmap for an EAC Blue Economy Strategy and Action Plan. The meeting brought together experts, policymakers, and stakeholders from the EAC partner states.

The objectives of this regional meeting were to acquire a baseline understanding of the blue economy in EAC, including its, challenges and opportunities, agree on how to harmonise existing continental, regional and national blue economy strategies with the EAC Blue Economy Strategy, ensure coherence, complementarity, and synergy; note the global best practices in blue economy strategy and implementation; and attain a common regional understanding of how to proceed with the formulation of the EAC Blue Economy Strategy and Action Plan, including the vision, goals, objectives, indicators, and implementation mechanisms.

Ms. Mama Keita, Director of ECA in Eastern Africa, applauded the participants of the meeting for the quality of presentations and discussions. She expressed her confidence that the Roadmap for an EAC Blue Economy Strategy and Action Plan has been set on strong grounds of common understanding and that the resulting Strategy and Action Plan will be an important document that will guide the EAC in developing a robust and inclusive blue economy agenda. She also reaffirmed ECA’s commitment to support the EAC in this endeavour.

Mr Jean Baptiste Havugimana, Director of Productive Sectors, East African Community commended this consultation exercise which serves to ensure that the upcoming EAC Blue Economy Strategy and Action Plan is in line with the established AU’s Africa Blue Economy Strategy and that the present varied level of engagement with the blue economy of its partner states are also taken into consideration. With the roadmap for this process being established and the priorities of the strategy being preliminarily identified, he is confident that the EAC Blue Economy Strategy and Action Plan will be a document which will have strong ownership by partner states who will be committed to its operationalisation.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).