USE OF BORDER COMMUNITIES TO ENHANCE INTEGRATION IN THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY; A Case Study of Karamoja Cluster

Abstract

The East Africa Cooperation is working on a formula for attaining political federation. There is the office of Deputy Secretary General for Fast Tracking Political Federation but to date, EAC remains an association of politicians, policy makers, civil societies and private sectors. This paper seeks to come up with recommendations on how to enjoin the people of East Africa into the affairs of EAC by encouraging cooperation in the border communities by looking at Karamoja Cluster of communities in Kenya and Uganda. Border communities are accustomed to ignoring the restrictions that come with international boundaries but the reality is their respective states ignore them. Culture is compost of ideas, values, language and systems attached to a group of people for perceiving, interpreting, expressing and responding to social realities. In identifying the shared cultural practices among communities in the Karamoja Cluster across Kenya and Uganda, we learn ways in which EAC can speed up integration at the grassroots, and using these to recommend ways EAC can incorporate these practices into its policies to enhance social integration.