Officials from Rwanda and Uganda are meeting this week in Kigali for the 11th Joint Permanent Commission (JPC) which will among others assess the implementation status of the 10th meeting and outline strategic areas of cooperation between the two countries. The two countries have traditionally been allies on different fronts; politically, socially and economically, despite the recent diplomatic tiff that momentarily affected the two until they were resolved about two years ago. The JPC is a platform through which different areas of mutual interest are discussed and an implementation plan mooted, which raises much expectations from the peoples of the two countries. After issues that afflicted the sisterly ties the two countries have enjoyed for generations were addressed, expectations are high from the citizens and efforts have to be expedited to catch up on lost time, especially on matters economic development. It is therefore of utmost importance that the series of meetings, include the business forum that will be held between the two delegations, yield practical outcomes that will see trade blossom, for the interest of both populations. The discussions should also be wider in scope to also cover the entire East African Region to which the two countries belong, especially the key trade route that is commonly known as Northern Corridor. Northern Corridor links the two countries to the Kenyan port of Mombasa and both Rwanda and Uganda were key pillars of the Northern Corridor Integrated Projects, which among others led to groundbreaking initiatives like the use of national IDs to cross common borders. Definitely, all these projects suffered greatly during the diplomatic impasse and this would be a good time to resuscitate them so that people get to enjoy even more benefits set out in regional initiatives like the Common Market, under which free movement falls.
