Legacy Work
Hali Yetu builds on a long tradition of regional reflection.
Since 2006, the Society for International Development (SID) has published the State of East Africa Reports, a series born of its East African Scenarios Project. Each edition set out to do three things: inform readers with facts and figures about the region, offer insight into the trends and tensions beneath them, and encourage East Africans to imagine the futures ahead. The aim throughout was an East African Community that is truly people-centred.
The Hali Yetu Collective draws on that legacy. The reports below remain a record of how the region has understood itself over the years, and a foundation for the work we are doing now.
The State of East Africa Reports
2006
Trends, Tensions and Contradictions: The Leadership Challenge
The first report in the series. It compiled and compared facts and figures on Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, to give the public a clear picture of where the region stood and where it might be heading.
2007
Searching for the Soul of East Africa
Looking beneath the statistics, this edition used seven essays and a set of editorial cartoons to ask who East Africans are and what shapes them: identity, social influences and informal structures.
2008
Nature Under Pressure
A snapshot of the region’s water, food production and energy resources.
2012
Deepening Integration, Intensifying Challenges
Building on the 2006 report, it analyzed social, economic, political and environmental trends across Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi. It set out to inform conversation about how regional integration was proceeding, and what it meant for ordinary people’s lives.
2013
One People, One Destiny? The Future of Inequality in East Africa
A follow-up to the 2012 report, examining trends in inequality and equity across the region. It asked whether the fruits of economic growth were bringing the EAC’s vision of “One People, One Destiny” any closer.
2016
Consolidating Misery? The Political Economy of Inequalities
Building on the 2013 report, it examined the relationship between politics and inequality across the region.
2021
20 Years of Integration: Prospects and Challenges
The seventh report in the series steps away from the inequality agenda of the two before it, to look back at the revival of the East African Community and the journey of integration since. Written after the Community’s low-key twentieth anniversary, amid conflict, trade disputes and doubts about the project’s future, it takes stock of real achievements, including a customs union and common market, major infrastructure and growing investment. It then asks the question running through them: is integration working, and for whom?
The earlier reports can also be browsed on the State of East Africa Report Series page of SID’s website.