East Africa

An unexpected outcome of the Covid-19 pandemic for many poor countries, East Africa included, is the extent to which it has raised the International Montery Fund and World Bank’s appetite for lending. As the devastating social and economic impacts of the pandemic manifested themselves in the United States, the UK, France, Italy and Spain, the […]

Kenya has closed its borders with Somalia and Tanzania as the country strives to stem further spread of the coronavirus. In a televised address to the nation on Saturday, President Uhuru Kenyatta said he was imposing more measures after it emerged that some of the cases had crossed the border from Tanzania and Somalia. “If […]

If lockdowns and stay-at-home orders are succeeding in slowing the spread of the coronavirus, health experts warn that the measures could unintentionally undermine efforts to contain another potentially deadly disease: HIV. At the start of April, Travis Sanchez, an epidemiologist at Emory University, carried out an online survey of around 1,000 men who have sex […]

Recurrent floods since late 2019, an upsurge in locust invasion, and now the Covid-19 outbreak, all make for disaster for food security in East African countries, experts are warning. The World Food Programme (WFP), for example, says due to Covid-19, the world faces “multiple famines of biblical proportions”. A “hunger pandemic” is what the WFP […]

Every day hundreds of trucks fan out from East Africa’s main ports in Kenya and Tanzania carrying cargo to the landlocked hinterland, and fears are rising they are becoming a major vector for the coronavirus. Their drivers gather at truckstops, weighbridges and customs points, socialising at lodges, restaurants and with sex workers who ply the […]

A stalemate between truck drivers and border control officials at different EAC crossing points has paralysed movement of goods within the region, raising the possibility of severe shortages of supplies in the coming weeks. The standoff, which has been caused by East African Community member countries’ failure to agree on how to stop regional spread […]

East Africa Community partner states are sitting on a time bomb as floods cause havoc in the region. Floods have killed 200 in Kenya, displaced 10,000 people and more than 65 deaths reported in Rwanda by Friday, as a second wave of locusts is expected to hit Kenya next month, threatening agriculture and food security […]

The confusion witnessed at East Africa’s border points this week demonstrated the consequences of a discordant approach to the Covid-19 pandemic, and the relative lack of depth of regional mechanisms, or commitment to them. Tanzanian long-distance drivers forced a closure of their country’s common border with Rwanda as they protested over Kigali’s introduction of a […]

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday that “extreme vigilance” was needed as countries begin to exit from lockdowns imposed to curb the spread of the new coronavirus, amid global concerns about a second wave of infections. Germany earlier reported an acceleration in new coronavirus infections after it took early steps to ease its […]