State of East Africa

Our work in East Africa builds on the current efforts aimed at strengthening regional integration. The East African Community (EAC) is a regional intergovernmental organization dedicated to promoting deep political, economic, and social integration among its member states, thereby fostering shared prosperity, stability, and development. Founded on a people-centered vision, the EAC Treaty places citizens at the heart of this process, emphasizing participation, inclusivity, and the equitable sharing of benefits. However, while its priorities include building a common market and monetary union, promoting cross-border infrastructure, and harmonizing policies for greater cooperation and mobility, the integration process has become increasingly state-driven and technocratic, often leaving ordinary East Africans behind and limiting the sense of ownership and connection that the treaty originally envisioned.

As such, our planned work in East Africa builds on a shared recognition that the region stands at a critical juncture – one that calls for renewed imagination, deeper listening, and deliberate engagement with the forces shaping its future. This effort seeks to revitalize a regional vision grounded in understanding the lived realities of East Africans, rethinking the nature of the state, and reasserting the role of public services and social contracts in driving inclusive transformation. By exploring emerging dynamics, including digital technologies, alternative economies, and shifting power relations, the initiative aims to generate new knowledge and foster dialogue that can inform more equitable pathways of governance and development. It also acknowledges the need to confront complex social trends – from the rise of betting economies to questions of identity and ideology – while creating space for artistic and civic voices to redefine narratives of progress. Ultimately, this East African thrust of Hali Yetu is about cultivating the intellectual, social, and institutional groundwork for a more just, self-determined, and forward-looking regional future.