LAKE VICTORIA BASIN

The LakeVictoria Basin is central to the transformation of the East Africa Community into a formidable economic growth zone, offering opportunities for regional integration and sustainable development. Such opportunities and associated benefits can only be achieved through the joint management of the Lake Victoria Basin (LVB) as a single but shared ecosystem. The need for inclusive regional cooperation in environmental management and social issues affecting the LVB has a long history, including the Convention on the Lake Victoria Fisheries Organization, which was signed in 1994 and came into force in 1996, and the revival of the East African Cooperation in the same year, as well as the establishment of the East Africa Community (EAC) in 1999. The EAC has had and continues to have a number of aims relating directly to the LVB (LVBC 2004), including: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES 4 • The designation of the Lake Basin as an economic growth zone and recognition of the economic potential therein • The commissioning of studies on an institutional and legal framework for the management of the Lake Basin, which culminated in the establishment of the Lake Victoria Programme Unit at the EAC Secretariat • Signature of the Treaty Establishing the East Africa Community in 1999 to provide the legal basis for the establishment of a body to manage the Lake Victoria Basin (article 114 of the Treaty) • The commissioning of a study on the economic potential and constraints of the Lake Victoria Basin in 2000 to provide a conceptual basis for developing a strategy for the Basin • The drafting of the Protocol for the Sustainable Management and Development of the Lake Victoria Basin in 2002. While the LVB offers innumerable opportunities for socioeconomic development of the EAC, it is worth acknowledging that the Basin also faces significant challenges, most notably those relating to environmental degradation, population pressure, high poverty levels, poor transport infrastructure, and high mortality rates due to the prevalence of HIV and AIDS, and diseases such as tuberculosis and malaria (LVBC 2004).

98

Made with