About EABC

 “The East African Community has a very important role of bringing the private sector
on board in support of the integration process”
Hirji Shah, Former Chairman of the East African Business Council

Who we are 

EABC was founded in 1997 as an apex body of business associations in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. EABC is a success story in terms of its lobby achievements, membership growth, region-wide recognition and media attention. In its first years EABC was a “one man show” with a tiny office, small budget and only 19 members. Today, EABC has 131 members. Since 2007, EABC has expanded to the new EAC member states, Rwanda and Burundi, with current members in these two states totaling 15.

EABC is engaged in several lobby campaigns, e.g. on Customs Union and Common Market. In 2008 EABC has hosted eight major events. Also in 2008 EABC Board met with all EAC heads of states, either individually or collectively during EAC summits. EABC has been reported in the media across East Africa over a hundred times in 2008.

Our Vision and Mission

• To be an effective change agent for fostering an enabling business environment for a diversified, competitive, export-led, integrated and sustainable economy.
• To promote Private Sector's regional and global competitiveness in trade and investment. 

Our objectives

• Facilitation and promotion of all aspects of private sector development in East Africa.
• Promotion of an enabling environment for business in East Africa. 
• To coordinate the efforts of the private sector for the promotion of trade and investment in East Africa.
• To provide a joint forum which enables the private sector to speak with one East African voice and in the process maintain a routine and institutionalized interaction with EAC Secretariat and dialogue with governments of EAC partner-states. 

Strategy & Achievements

EABC engages members in aggregating policy positions and lobbies for policy change through a structured dialogue with EAC organs. This strategy is accompanied by information dissemination to various stakeholders and media.

During the years 2003-2005 EABC was challenged to develop and to deepen its positioning on the newly created Customs Union. The issue of the Common External Tariff emerged as an acid test for overcoming divergent nationalistic interests among the business community. EABC succeeded to unify interests and to offer to EAC a consolidated private sector view.

Since 2006 EABC has been aiming to substantiate and to deepen the policy dialogue with EAC. The new approach has proved to be successful, with several cooperation projects such as the NTB Monitoring Mechanism, the Annual Media Summit and Trade & Investment Promotion activities being established. EABC has therefore succeeded to position itself as privileged policy dialogue partner.

Given the need to reach out lobbying to key institutions at the national level EABC has set up policy dialogue with Ministers and Heads of States. The publicity generated from this “top level lobbying” has given EABC the leverage to raise issues at the EAC level.

The achievements so far can be summarised as follows:

• Growth of membership from 20 in 2003 to 121 in 2008; with members being drawn from main manufacturers and employers associations; chambers of commerce, private sector apex bodies, among others. This has made EABC truly representative of the private sector.
• Timely and business friendly dissemination of information on regional integration issues, through our website, newsletters, workshops, among others. We reach over 3000 private sector stakeholders in the region.
• Regular lobby campaigns and policy dialogue engaging EAC, national governments and private sector
• Establishment Top level lobbying (regular meetings with Heads of State)
• Partnership with EAC as privileged policy dialogue partner

Recent lobby successes include

• Establishment of a 24-hour service delivery at the Mombasa Port
• 24 hours border operations introduced in all major land border stations
• Police road-blocks slashed from 47 to 17

Partnerships

EABC’s formation was actively supported by the EAC Secretariat in light of the increasing participation of the private sector players in issues of regional integration. EABC has been granted Observer Status at the EAC since the beginning of its operations. EABC is now pursuing an application to become an independent collaborating institution of the EAC. With active support from EAC Secretariat, the application has been tabled to the EAC Summit.

EABC’s has several development Partners. The main partner has been GTZ, which has provided mainly staff and consultancy support since 2003. Other development partners include DFID / RTFP and ILEAP. EABC is also in partnership with other business association including NIR, CBC and Afrika Verein.

Management

EABC is managed by a 22 member Executive Committee, headed by a Chairperson, elected from the 5 partner States on annual rotational basis. A Secretariat, based in Arusha and headed by an Executive Director and limited Staff, serves the day to day needs of the Members.

EABC has grown to become the voice of the private sector in East Africa. We are proud to represent interests of the business community in the enlarged East African Community region with 5 Partner States and a combined population of over 120 million people.