Budget2012: - Is East Africa Spending where it matters?

This afternoon, finance ministers from across the East African region – Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda simultaneously tabled budget estimates for the fiscal year 2012/2013 to their respective legislative organs. As per usual, it has been almost routine that around this time of the year as citizens anticipate these budget pronouncements: retailers/traders horde their stock pending tax decisions that could affect their pricing; citizens look forward to price reductions, revellers hold their breath for cuts on booze etc ... Arguably for the ordinary citizen, that’s almost as far as it has always gone. What remains is always but the mundane phase of adapting to the system with the new fiscal indications and their implications on everyday life. Otherwise, the rest has always been largely dominated by government - the bits about how the budget is actualised into expenditure and further to tangible developmental returns to citizen from whom the revenue basket was obtained.

Citizens across the region received their budgets with mixed reactions: Tanzanians worried about the big proportion of their budget consumed by recurrent expenditure, escalating costs of living, inflation and taxation. Kenyans irked by an outrageous Ksh 179 billion budget deficit apparently to be financed by borrowing and ODA; Rwandese happy about the facts that for the first time about 54% of national budget financed not by aid but domestic resources notably tax. For me I took the liberty to highlight a few imperatives about the trends in allocation of public resources and their expenditure across East African states. By so doing I thought, this could stimulate your thinking around how these resources have been obtained in the past, what has been done with them and maybe to give some implicit indications on what things would look like in the future today’s pronouncements notwithstanding.  I selected three sectors I deemed most relevant owing to the challenges the region is facing and the collective aspirations of people around the region.


 I look at the Agriculture, Education and Health sectors basing my rationale on their relevance to poverty reduction and general individual well being. See how governments have been performing: make your own judgement based on what you hear from budget speeches year in year out and what you experience in a daily life.

Agriculture: There is the common notion across the region that 'Agriculture is the backbone of the economy' – employs over 90% of the workforce in Burundi, contributes approximately 51% of GDP in Kenya, a leading export facilitator and foreign exchange earner in Uganda, provides crucial raw materials for industrialisation in Tanzania and is the ultimate answer to food security. Logically, this can only mean then that the policy makers that yap about this put their money where their mouth is. However it does not look like that is the case. 

The agriculture sector has been largely underfunded despite its renowned relevance in dealing with both rural and urban poverty, creating employment and bolstering economic growth in many economies worldwide. On average none of the EAC countries (save for Rwanda lately) spends more than 5% of total government expenditure on the agriculture sector. I listened pensively to Kenya’s Finance minister eloquently indicating that agriculture will be one of the key sectors to drive economic growth in the country in FY 2012/2012 without allocating significant amounts of resources to the sector! What’s more astounding is how these leaders have gone to lengths of committing our countries to better allocation of resources for agriculture but resigned to business as usual. A case example is the Maputo Declaration on Agriculture and Food Security and the 10 percent national budget allocation to agriculture development. At an AU summit in 2003 African heads of state committed to increase public investment in agriculture by a minimum of 10 per cent of their national budgets and to raise agricultural productivity by at least 6 per cent. Well I leave the judgement to you; take a look at the status of affairs ten years down form Maputo:

Health: It is no news that East Africa is home to a large population of sick and poor people. Disease, hunger, and malnutrition is rife. There are about 76.37 million poor people in East Africa, nearly 53.86% of the regions entire population; and a huge constituency of people living with HIV/AIDS let alone other ailments. So again, logically you expect the honourable men and women on the policy making tables to be scratching their heads thinking of how to deal with this.  In fact they on record having committed themselves to increasing spending/allocations for the health sector. In 2001, African Heads of state congregated in Abuja Nigeria and ratified what came to be known as the Abuja Declaration: the communiqué – to increase spending on health care to at least 15% of total state spending. 

However in reality the average proportion of health expenditure between 2000 and 2010 has been well below the target 15% for all the EAC states. Furthermore, when measured against total population, per capita health sector spending in the EAC states has been below the 44 USD per individual World Heath Organization set standard for minimum resources required to strengthen healthcare systems and service provision in low income countries. Have a look at how folks in East Africa are doing; again the judgement is yours.

Education: When it comes to education, politicians in the region have amassed handsome points and political accolades in the international arena. Behold 'free primary education’. Give credit where its due, universal primary education has seen increased enrolment (90% in Burundi by 2010), enhanced adult literacy and furthered a very crucial social protection agenda for many children caught up in chronic poverty across the region. But then again, could this be done any better? is it enough? See how far East Africa has gone with regards to substantial investment in education:

Well I tried to follow up and see where funds get to then, having established that Education, Health and Agric are not the trendy things when it comes to the people who decide on what goes to what. Looks like we are spoiling ourselves with bloated bureaucracies, ‘fancy infrastructure’ and ‘top notch security’. May be its time to ask, where the infrastructure is, what the dividends of increased security spending are! 

A big thank you to E. Rukundo @lukusem and K. Rono @ronokaren for helping with the data and analyses

'Doom or Prosperity: What does the discovery of oil and gas in East Africa portend for public expenditure, governance?’

 

The recent discovery of oil and gas deposits in East Africa present new opportunities through access to energy and increased oil revenues that could be instrumental in charting a new sustainable growth path for the region. It presents East African states with strategic leverage to expand on public spending and to better control and determine the developmental trajectories of their economies and the livelihoods of their citizens.

These discoveries no doubt come as a relief not only for government but to citizens alike with rekindled hopes for fairer distribution of economic development and reduction of poverty. Governments perennially bedeviled with headaches of delicate budgeting, deficits, possible resistance and activism related to over-taxation and demands for accountability that comes with both taxation and conditionalities for aid delivery certainly look forward to such discoveries.  Within the psyche of the ordinary citizen, persuaded that such discoveries herald expansion of the state revenue basket, this means better funding for delivery of public goods and releases the burden on taxation. It could also mean increases in individual income and consumption that all translate into optimism for individual well being.  And arguably, this could also be a relief to donors and donor agencies mobilizing resources to deliver development assistance.

However, these discoveries also come amidst controversial discourse amongst policy makers, development partners and academia on their developmental prospects. This draws from disappointing developmental returns that have been generated in the past by emergent natural resource revenues in countries like Yemen, Nigeria and Zambia. These countries failed to leverage their natural resource wealth into strong states. It also draws from evidence indicating that properly managing resource windfalls remains a challenge for many developing countries and indeed portends harmful tendencies to their development. In fact these resources have become synonymous with high levels of inequality and poverty, poor governance, weak institutions, corruption, conflict and over-dependence on singular natural resources presenting barriers to economic diversification commonly referred to by many authors as the ‘resource curse’.  

Take a look at the world's newest nation - South Sudan: on average between 2005 and 2011 oil revenues contributed over 97.8% of government revenues. This is depressing news; it has left the economy vulnerable to external shocks. A case example is the decision to shut down its entire oil production from January 2012 in response to the dispute with Khartoum. This has brought about unprecedented inflation rates (upto 80% in May 2012) that citizens now have got to deal with. The acute dependence on oil revenues has also hamstrung serious investment in an effective and efficient tax system which obviously has had huge ramifications on state accountability besides the myriad of teething problems South Sudan has to attend to.

In sum, countries that depend on such natural resources for their livelihood eventually become among the most economically troubled, the most authoritarian, and the most conflict-ridden in the world. There is need therefore to begin having more open and honest dialogue around the emergence of East Africa’s new natural resource wealth within individual countries and across the states as in the East African Community. 

East Africa must begin to ask and provide answers to these fundamental questions:

• What implications does this have on government revenues (in terms of tax, development assistance, and other non-tax revenues)?
• How will this affect the character and psychology of government spending?
• What impact would this have on donor psychology; trends in commitments and aid disbursements?
• How will this change the attitudes of citizens in terms of taxation, initiative, and civil awareness (keeping government accountable?)
• What does this portend for poverty and poverty reduction in East Africa?

There is need for intensive and extensive conversations not only within the realms of formal public policy making but encompassing informal street-wise discourse as well on the prospects and foreseen challenges for the region. Discussions on expectations and responsibilities of every stakeholder. East Africa must forecast the expectations of government on growth and public finance; expectations of citizens on expansion of public expenditure to reflect developmental needs, lesser taxation, effective delivery of public goods and overall individual/household well-being; expectations from citizen groups and civil society on more transparency, accountability and responsiveness to citizen demands.  

Such discussions inevitably must inform public policy, especially macroeconomic ones that determine expenditure on different sectors of the economy. Equally such discussions must function to dispel myths, manage citizens expectations and optimism and guide government psychology towards sustainable exploitation of such resources and efficient expenditure of revenues generated thereof. 

 WATCH THIS SPACE FOR INVITES FOR PARTICIPATION IN A ROUND TABLE FORUM ON 3RD JULY 2012 IN NAIROBI, KENYA INTERROGATING THESE ISSUES A LOT MORE

The Kenya Open Data Initiative: Blessing or just another political fad?

  The Kenya Government commissioned an ambitious open data programme with over 390 data sets of information on key public services, demographic data, national and regional expenditures in July 2011 under the platform - The Kenya Open Data Initiative.

It aimed to improve transparency, unlock social and economic value, enhance active governance and to increase involvement of Kenyans in the development of their communities amongst other imperatives. 

What remains unknown however is the extent to which this initiative has added value and improved the state of affairs to date. Is it useful or another of the many political fads?

Please take some time and participate in this short survey  interrogating the initiative

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/GYXT653. It will take you less than 5 minutes to complete. The outcomes will form part of a piece of research am conducting on the effectiveness of open data initiatives in improving governance and influencing the allocation of resources for development most specifically reduction of chronic poverty. 

Thank you!

Where art thou oh African Philanthropist?

‘In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: It is more blessed to give than to receive’ (Acts 20:35 NIV)

Last Night as I skimmed through the OECD Credit Reporting System (CRS), I noticed that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation actually features on the dataset as a key donor reporting well over $2.9 billion worth of foreign aid to developing nations and $0.75 billion worth of commitments to Sub-Sahara Africa between 2009 and 2010. Well it is common knowledge that private entities and foundations financed by the world’s rich and renowned philanthropists today contribute a significant proportion of development assistance channelled to countries commonly referred to in aid parlance as the Highly Indebted Poor Countries. The list doesn’t end with the Gates foundation, a lot more other generous rich men and women have extended their generosity and committed significant proportions of their wealth to supporting organizations and initiatives that work to reduce human suffering, restore human dignity, alleviate and mitigate the effects of poverty.

But that’s not the reason I woke up early this morning to do this post: certainly not. I came across this list of the richest men and women of the African continent published by the Forbes magazine and I was honestly flabbergasted! Men, don’t we have rich people down here! I mean men and women who have earned their wealth out of legitimate mercantile ventures (I elect to down play the plethora of others, probably way richer than the ones on Forbes, whose wealth is of dubious cradles). I mean the likes of Aliko Dangote ($11.2 billion), Nigeria; Mohamed Al Amoudi ($12.5 billion), Ethiopia/Saudi; Mike Adenuga ($4.3 billion), Nigeria; Nassef and Naquib Sawiri (over $8.2 billion), Egypt; Patrice Motsepe ($2.7 billion), South Africa Miloud Chaabi ($2.9 billion), Morocco and so on. These guys are billionaires in their own right, making it in this continent of perceived squalor, ineptitude and misery.

The question that lurked in my mind as I read through this list was why Africa’s richest have failed the philanthropy test? Why haven’t these honourable men of the African soil found it prudent and befitting to share a small steady proportion of this share of the African cake with the desperate folks engulfed in poverty and deprivation in Sub Sahara? How comes other men and women elsewhere have felt the pinch, the pain and suffering of fellow Africans a lot more than we do us African Moguls, billionaires? How comes it doesn’t disturb you honourable vanguards of my decent that people miles away from the villages of Pampaida, N/Nigera; Malehice, Mozambique; Marsabit, Kenya; Mai Chaka, Ethiopia; Candele, Angola, come all the way to feed our starving folks, treat our sickling children, clothe our women and shelter our families. How shameful?

Do a small quick math – take Aliko Dangote for example, ranked 76^th richest being on earth, with an empire worth over $11 billion USD in 2011. This is four times the total GDP of the republic of Burundi, 30% that of Kenya, twice Nigeria’s 2011 federal budget and 55 times Nigeria’s health sector budget in the same year. Dangote’s pre-tax turnover in 2010 was well over $100 million dollars: just slightly about 8% of this profit margin is equivalent to the $0.8 billion required for the Nigeria Federal government to beat the target of committing at least 15% of total government revenue for health sector spending set in Abuja by Africa heads of states in 2000. Likewise Mohamed Al Amoudi is ranked 63^rd wealthiest man (also richest black man). His business empire worth $12.5 billion in 2011 was 15% total GDP of the five East African countries and equivalent to South Sudan’s average GDP between 2008 and 2010.  

I am by no means claiming even vaguely that there haven’t been philanthropic gestures from noble individuals around Africa; NO. In fact there have been anecdotes of evidence showing significant contributions (albeit irregular, unpredictable and devoid of focus) to health, education and cultural sectors, most visibly sport. Dangote through the Dangote Foundation has reportedly supported education and health service delivery systems and provided humanitarian assistance to victims of natural disasters and post-election and religious crises in Nigeria, Al Amoudi likewise has supported breast cancer research and HIV/AIDS interventions, notably the International Conference on AIDS and STIs (ICASA). However, I am posing these questions because I thought well to do Africans could logically identify a lot more with the poverty in Africa than anyone else; and I thought as well that they could be a lot more challenged and incentivised to give than those from other continents. I believe what is forthcoming from Africa’s tycoons is far too little considering the proportion of Africa’s resources that sustains their wealth. And whenever they give, that which is forthcoming has invariably been unpredictable, not properly organised and never harmonised with state structures and systems that factor in aid in country resource baskets and expenditures.  

Free market privileges notwithstanding, I think it has reached the point where the same manner of activism and a commensurate measure of pressure that has been put on rich countries and capitalists to support poverty and developmental initiatives needs to assume the direction of Africa’s home grown tycoons. Their wealth reflects continued consumption of significant chunks of Africa’s resources and they must thus do the honourable thing ... start GIVING: giving a little more, transparently and regularly. Motsepe’s mines are obviously depleting a considerable amount of South Africa’s mineral deposits; Dangote’s cement empire is definitely exhausting West Africa’s rich limestone fields, Al Amoudi’s oil ventures sure have their share of destruction on Africa’s environment and natural resources, Adenuga’s telecom business has so far cashed in on West Africa’s purchasing population and Uhuru Kenyatta is of course holding on to humongous tracks of land that multitudes of Kenyans could do with.  If anything, isn’t that what legacy is all about, playing a part in making the world a better place for all of us.  

The big names in global philanthropy, the likes of J.D Rockefeller Jnr, Bill Gates, George Soros and other consistent foundations that continue to deliver funding for development projects in Africa like the Levi Strauss, Hewllet, Ford foundations have well structured and organized modalities for delivering portions of their wealth as development assistance. This is well aligned with state structures and could be streamlined to compliment and supplement government budgets and developmental objectives. That is obviously lacking in Africa; the few who have attempted to institutionalise their giving are unpredictable, irregular and lack the transparency that is requisite for aid effectiveness. Most of the resource flows from Africa’s moguls have been expended in financing sport and culture related ventures and pursuing political expediency.  Al Amoudi for example has handsomely sponsored the Council for East and Central Africa Football Associations (CECAFA), Dangote hugely funding former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo’s political campaigns as well as incumbent Goodluck Jonathan who even awarded him one of Nigeria’s highest ranks of nobility; Mike Adenuga’s Glocom has equally funded music competitions across West Africa.  Otherwise, a lot of news about these billionaires is normally about their luxurious indulgences that ridicule the continent. The $45 million bombardier XRS private jet that Dangote got himself on his 53^rd birthday in 2011 for example was equivalent to 80% of all aid disbursements for education sector spending in South Sudan in the same year.

My message to the Forbes 10 African Billionaires to watch - messrs:  Manu Chandaria (Kenya), Phuthuma Nhleko (South Africa), Naushad Merali (Kenya), Tokyo Sexwale (South Africa), Harold Pupkewitz (Namibia), Said Salim Bakhresa (Tanzania), Gilbert Chagoury (Nigeria), Antonio Oladeinde Fernandez (Nigeria), Kase Lawal (Nigeria) and Isabel Dos Santos (Angola) - when your pockets eventually cross the billionaire mark, remember that as much as the liberal market economy today rewards and privileges hard working individuals with huge perks (in the form of profits and comfort) ... it doesn’t preclude and relieve the rest of us African folk from our share of the continents wealth. Find it within you as a matter of obligation and morality to share the spoil. And while you are at it, care to be more predictable and transparent. Foreign philanthropy has succeed somewhat and so must African philanthropy.

IN ANY CASE EVEN GOD DEMANDS OF US TO BE KIND

#Someone Tell CNN

#SomeoneTellCNN has been trending in Kenya for more than 12 hours now. Well this was a demand by Kenya's ‘twittosphere’ who agree that CNN was inept and out-rightly unfair to the Kenyan nation on its reporting of the grenade explosions that occurred at Country Bus Station in downtown Nairobi in the evening of Saturday 10^th March 2012 for a formal apology from CNN.

Frankly, I live in Nairobi and was less than 5 miles away from the site of the grenade explosion that CNN referred to in this erroneous ‘news scoop’ and there are two things; a fact and the other a falsehood that I’d like anyone who reads this post to appreciate.

Fact: - Three hand grenades were thrown out of a moving car that exploded and killed three instantly, another three succumbed to injuries at the Kenyatta National Hospital and 68 others sustained injuries from the explosion.

Fiction: - David McKenzie’s allusion that a wave of VIOLENCE had revisited Kenya

This is the typical case of unfair bad reporting of events that happen in Africa by international media: An obviously exaggerated and blown out of proportion account of a grenade attack that the government of Kenya is investigating and already linked to the infamous rogue Somali militia – Al Shabab. Listen folks at CNN, get it from me, KENYA IS PEACEFUL, there is no VIOLENCE as portrayed by David McKenzie yesterday. What happened was an isolated case that obviously didn’t warrant the amount of publicity that was granted by CNN. If I worked for CNN, I would have reported to you how a desperate cornered militia group attempted to disturb peace in Nairobi and how Kenya is dealing with it; how the rest of the country is largely serene despite the attacks. Or better still I would report to you the milestones that Kenyan athletes were accomplishing  in Istanbul, Turkey at the IAAF indoor games at the moment of the explosion.   

As he went ahead to deny having used the word VIOLENCE on air during the live broadcast, the banner screaming ‘VIOLENCE IN KENYA’ that accompanied it betrayed his alibi and irked the millions of Kenyans on twitter. It spoke volumes to the huge audience he was targeting. With all due respect David McKenzie and CNN succeed in unearthing the dark moments in the history of Kenya that we’ve struggled to deal with, a portrait that has cost us fortunes in economic terms and a priceless image of peace that we will forever owe our future generations. Whoever is aware of the violence that rocked Kenya in 2007/2008 after disputed elections definitely had a memory refresher that is hard to undo! 

Though Kenyans on twitter have boldly posited their dissatisfaction and demanded an apology from CNN (follow this link for a transcript http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56VuSrYSSWE) I think an apology cannot be the ultimate. Am trying to soberly argue with whoever is responsible for editing news at CNN: could you please develop the habit of doing a lot more serious background work before you hurry to grab a 'news scoop' and make fools of yourselves.  I am not a trained journalist but I keep wondering: Why is it so difficult to be objective and truthful about what is reported about happenings in Africa? Yes, Africa has her share of challenges: poverty, bad governance, violence etc but what kills Africa most today is the bad IMAGE and bad publicity every African state has got to deal with. This out-rightly irresponsible and contemptuous trend in reporting African affairs must stop.

Come on folks, we are struggling to market Africa here. We are trying to attract investment and people for tourism. This pessimistic countenance sure makes things much harder. Stop portraying Africa as the home of EVIL, SQUALOR and all manner of negatives. Image is very integral for the African Renaissance and so as much as David MacKenzie might have offered a half hearted 136 character apology to Kenyans on twitter, the bad image he conveyed to billions of CNN audience can obviously not be reversed. The damage is done.  It will cost loads more to change the perception of the Swiss couple that was making travel arrangements to come to Kenya for holiday; to regain the confidence of the Chinese businessman who was finalising portfolio preparations and correspondence ahead of an investment meet in Kenya and of course much more to win the will of the Canadian student that was winding up preparations to travel to Kenya for a months long research.

No amount of apology on CNN can possibly cure that. 

Listen Mr. African 'STATESMAN': Rants of a Troubled Pan-Africanist

OK listen AU, IGAD, EAC, NEPAD and all other multilateral African institutions and ‘statesmen’ who’ve perfected the art of perennially ranting and whining about ‘Western Imperialism’. I am talking as a Pan-Africanist disturbed by the ingenuity, ineptitude and slack of many a folk in the exclusive club of African leadership. 

Listen, an intergovernmental, inter-agency summit is underway in London, United Kingdom as I write. It’s the Somalia Conference convened by British Prime Minister David Cameron and his allies to address the troubles and restoration of Somalia. I know you are probably there already - INVITED, and must have carried elaborate delegations with you. Invited to participate? Invited to provide quorum? Or maybe just to be placated? Maybe to be arm twisted like you traditionally have been. Don’t you find it uneasy, disturbing or just funny that you are invited by a foreign entity, the same ‘Western Imperialists’ that you detest so much to deliberate on an endemic African predicament, a shameful scar on the Emblem of Africanism that is squarely on your mandate? Aren’t you a tad bit disturbed by your always sluggish, last-man response to matters of African welfare?

I listened pensively to presidential speeches at the recently concluded AU summit in Addis Ababa: African leaders whining, distraught and disenfranchised, faulting the West, NATO for their role in the destabilization of an African flagship country – Libya. But come to think of it, beyond that barrage of rhetoric, emotions and the display of flaring tempers orchestrated by the likes of Zimbabwean ‘statesman’ Robert Mugabe, What did you do about Libya? How much seriousness did you commit to standing with an African state? How much resources or even time did you devote to rescuing Libya? After how long did you act? Anyway, I guess my questions could be indeed irrelevant for a people who can’t even agree on a stable AU leadership, a people clearly disillusioned and oblivious of their mandate.

How shameful it is that you just get invited to an assembly of this calibre. How humbling it is that you will merely sign the resolutions but without the muscle and space to take centre stage in their execution. How I wish this would have been a partnership at the least, a joint caucus of an African multilateral institution with the western allies OR at best an African initiative strategized and executed by Africans drawing in international allies. As it is, I guess you haven’t mustered any serious leverage in these deliberations and you won’t be able to bargain and argue more aptly for Somalia, the Horn of Africa, and Africa. God forbid you might be participating effectively as rubberstamp ink, in a premeditated process of ratifying already engineered English/Western judgements on the prospects for Somalia.

Isn’t it time you cut the rhetoric and got more proactive, more strategic and more creative in sorting out the challenges bedevilling our beautiful troubled continent? Isn’t it time such big African economies like Nigeria, South Africa as well as promising ones like Ghana, Botswana rolled up their sleeves and contributed more in terms of resources, time and delved into the murky waters of African Unity like their counterparts in Asia, Europe and South America do? 


For as long as you proceed with the prevailing ambivalence about these imperatives, you continue to sell out Africa – Cut the rhetoric folks; get down to work!  

  

Conflict and Integration:

Unorthodox Shoots of Regional Cooperation in the Horn of Africa

Orthodox integration theory requires that countries have functional institutions, sufficient capacity to control their populations, adequate structures to regulate socio-economic and political activity within and across their territories and political leadership willing to cede some state sovereignty in order to realise regional cooperation.

The Horn of Africa, perennially caught up in conflict, fraught cross-border political relations, uneven state capacities, competing multilateral/regional bodies like IGAD, CEN-SAD, EAC, COMESA and low levels of interstate trade and other economic complementarities is thus characteristically deficient of the requisite frameworks for formal regional integration and cooperation. States are too fragile, institutions too weak, and leaders fixated to conservatist ideologies on national sovereignty and statehood.

In exploring the prospects for regional cooperation in the Horn of Africa therefore, the fundamental question is: Can economic drivers transform the endemic conflict in the region OR Does political instability obviate the prospects of economic cooperation?

Evidence form Sally (2011) Chatham House Report, indicates that despite the climate of conflict, insecurity and political upheaval, shoots of integration and cooperation; are prevalent and continue to sprout in the horn of Africa though working outside conventional frameworks of formal integration. These are facilitated by kinship and community ties across borders, the hawala system and substantial remittances from citizens in diaspora. Substantial volumes of informal cross-border trade in livestock, khat, coffee, oil seeds, pulses medicines, clothing and fuel takes place in border towns Moyale (Kenya), Bardheere (Somalia), Tug Wajule (Somalia) and Matema annually. This has demonstrated that cross-border linkages and economic relations to a significant extent can thrive in the absence of formal state structures and interstate mediation for cooperation.

Perhaps, therefore, resources and effort should be invested in leveraging such less state-centric informal cross-border relations instead of formal state-state cooperation as an approach to regionalism in the Horn of Africa. Focusing more on bolstering cross-border relations between communities endemically engulfed in conflict, expanding such relations to more productive economic ventures, formalising normally illicit economic activities, improving management of shared resources that bind communities and producing more regional public goods that foster integration.