DRC completes the accession process to the East African Community

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) completed today, 11 July 2022, the last step of the accession process to the East African Community (EAC) by depositing the instrument of ratification of the Treaty for the establishment of the EAC to the Secretary-General of the Organisation.

After a long negotiation process, DRC finally signed the Accession treaty of the EAC on April 8, 2022, being given a deadline of five months (up to September 2022) to complete the process of ratification of the EAC Treaty and the deposit of the relevant instrument of accession.

The EAC accession ratification bill was adopted by the DRC government half of May 2022, while the Parliament voted and approved it on 9 June 2022 together with other 2 bills: one authorizing the ratification of a technical and economic cooperation agreement in the field of infrastructure investments with Qatar (signed in Doha on February 10, 2022), and one authorizing the ratification of a general agreement of cooperation with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

With the deposit to the EAC of the instrument of accession to the EAC Treaty, the DRC becomes today officially a full Member of the East African Community. The fact that this Regional Economic Community will stretch now from the Atlantic to the Indian ocean is extremely important, as it opens the possibility for the EAC to plan and launch projects for the construction of transit corridors cutting transversally Africa to link the two oceans, which will enormously help the integration of the continent, considering that still today Africa lacks of roads connecting the Western and the Eastern coast.