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:

• 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).

CHALLENGES AND

OPPORTUNITIES