End of June, the AUC and the EAC Secretariat, in collaboration with the Partner States of Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan and in partnership with the GIZ-African Union Border Programme (GIZ-AUBP), have embarked on a peace caravan as well as a benchmarking tour for border communities. It focuses on communities with persisting issues as well as areas where border issues have been peacefully and successfully resolved for experiential learning.
“In pursuit of the AU target of the Delimitation and Demarcation of Boundaries in Africa by 2027, the GIZ African Union Border Programme is committed to supporting our Partner States. This work has to be preceded by peace building missions for it to be successful, and it is in this vein, we have supported the EAC Peace Caravan and Benchmarking Tour, which is the start of a series across the EAC region,” highlighted GIZ Advisor Lindiwe Ngwenya during the caravan.
Phase I of the peace caravan and benchmarking tour will run from 28 June to 7 July with a flag off in Lodwar, Kenya. The Peace Caravan will move to the Namanga border between Kenya and Tanzania involving representatives of the Atekar community – composed of Turkana, Toposa and Karamojong communities from Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan. The three communities still practice nomadic pastoralism and live around the border-area of Nadapal-Lokichogio (Trijunction). The caravan will enable the communities to exchange and learn from the experience of the Maasai community between Tanzania and Kenya who have been living and co-existing peacefully.
The overall objective of the tour is to promote peaceful co-existence, good neighborliness and peaceful resolution of disputes among border communities in the EAC region through experiential learning from best practices of other border communities in the region.
Additionally, each phase of the tour will be concluded by a conference on peaceful co-existence and regional integration. The conferences aim to sensitize the communities on demarcating international boundaries and peaceful resolutions of border disputes. This will enable the border communities’ representatives to share their observations, learnings and interactions with the host communities.  This approach will enable the cascading to community levels the African Union Principle of “African Solutions for African Problems”.
The peace caravan and bench marking tour is expected to deliver the following:
•    A joint border communities Peace Declaration/Agreement;
•    A documentary of the peace caravan and the peace conference;
•    A report of the peace caravan, benchmarking tours and peace conference, highlighting lessons learnt and recommendations.
Background
GIZ-AUBP is a continental programme working with African Union Member States, Regional Economic Communities such as the EAC and the African Union Commission to implement the African Union Border Programme (AUBP). It is commissioned by the German Federal Foreign Office. The programme focuses on preventing border-related conflicts, disputes and insecurity which undermine the integration goals. The programme further works with its partners to foster regional and continental integration through cross-border cooperation leading to safe and open borders transforming these “from barriers to bridges” as per the motto of the AUBP.
Find more information on GIZ-AUBP here.