This year's seminar of the KAAD Association of Scholars from East Africa (KASEA) took place in Mwanza on Lake Victoria in eastern Tanzania from July 24 to 27, 2025. The venue was the immediate vicinity of three important institutions - the Saint Augustine University of Tanzania (SAUT), the Bugando Medical Centre and the Catholic University of Health and Allied Sciences (CUHAS) - where several former KAAD scholars work as lecturers. Dr. Marko Kuhn, Head of the KAAD's Africa Department, took the opportunity to visit the institutions before the start of the seminar and to talk to the alumnae and alumni on site about their everyday academic life, structural conditions and professional perspectives.
The thematic focus of the seminar – "Social and Economic Corridors in the East African Community (EAC)" – placed the spotlight on social and economic interdependencies in East Africa. The focus was not only on trade and economic infrastructures, but also on the movement of people, access to resources and the political framework conditions. In his welcoming address, Marko Kuhn recalled that economic issues have always been among the central themes of church social ethics: Job opportunities, income security, state revenues and distributive justice are basic prerequisites for the common good. According to Catholic social teaching, trade must be subject to the criteria of justice and the integrity of creation. Economic framework conditions are not an abstract topic, but directly affect the reality of many people's lives and therefore also the responsibility of church-based networks such as KASEA.
The content of the seminar focused precisely on these questions: What does economic integration mean in concrete terms in the East African region, and where do political agreements reach their limits in terms of implementation? With a view to the East African Community (EAC), topics such as the free movement of persons, access to land ownership and the mutual recognition of identity documents came into focus. The African Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), founded in 2021, was also addressed – as an ambitious vision of a single economic zone, the practical implementation of which is being held back in many places by structural and political hurdles.
The seminar offered space to examine and critically discuss these challenges from different professional perspectives - supported by a broad spectrum of contributions from former grantees. Dr. Anne Grace Gongwe, economist at the SAUT in Mwanza, highlighted the integration steps taken so far within the EAC and emphasized the importance of a functioning internal market and student mobility. KAAD alumnus Prof. Dr. Odas Bilame (University of Dodoma) drew attention to non-tariff barriers to trade, such as lengthy border formalities, police controls and different security standards, which hinder regional exchange. KAAD alumna Dr. Fortunata Msoffe, Senior Wildlife Conservationist at the Tanzania National Parks Authority (TANAPA), recalled the shared ecological heritage of East Africa: from Lake Victoria to the Serengeti to the coast of the Indian Ocean, the habitats are connected across borders and can only be preserved together – a mandate for regional cooperation and awareness-raising. Dr. Christopher Otieno Omolo, KAAD alumnus and consultant at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) in Addis Ababa, spoke about the difficulties in implementing the protocol on labour mobility within the framework of the AfCFTA and described the political persuasion required at national level.
Two excursions rounded off the program: the first took the participants to the Bujora Cultural Centre, also known as the Sukuma Museum, which was founded in 1968 by a Catholic missionary and relates the cultural traditions of the Sukuma to the Christian faith. The center, which is still under the supervision of the Archdiocese of Mwanza, offers educational work, lively cultural mediation and a space for intercultural dialogue. A second excursion led to the nearby Saanane Island in Lake Victoria. The national park there – the smallest in Tanzania – impressed with its biodiversity and facilitated discussions on the connection between biodiversity, sustainable development and tourism.
In discussions, group work and personal encounters, it became clear that the vision of regional integration continues to come up against national boundaries in mental, legal and administrative terms. Just during the seminar, a new regulation of the Tanzanian government attracted attention, which prohibits non-citizens from working in certain sectors of small entrepreneurship. This is a clear breach of the principles of the EAC. From a legal perspective, Dr. Jebby Gonza, an international law expert at the University of Dodoma, explained the complexity of transposing international treaties into national law, a process that is often blocked by political hesitation or a lack of legislation.
The tenor of the seminar was that despite many good ideas in local free trade areas (such as the East African Community) and in the Africa-wide AfCFTA zone, implementation fails in many places. National borders, although often arbitrarily drawn by colonial powers, play a more important role in people's minds than many people in Africa are often willing to admit. Added to this is the arbitrariness of state authorities and bureaucracy, which are among the many "non-tariff barriers to trade" that still need to be overcome, especially with regard to the free movement of people. As this seminar is attended by participants from three countries every year, there are always national borders to overcome and the participants experience first-hand what it means when border crossings are complicated and lengthy. International treaties concluded between states have the status of international law and therefore always take precedence over national legislation. However, they are also dependent on being implemented at national level in such a way that they become national law. There are many intentional and unintentional delays and complications at this point. The intensive discussions at the seminar led the participants to the conviction that they all want to work in their own circles of influence to actually implement the spirit of the multilateral agreements so that everyone can benefit from the advantages of freedom of movement and increased prosperity through increased trade.
The seminar came to a spiritual and communal close with a church service organized by the two KAAD alumni Dr. James Musana (Uganda) and Ms. Ben Opiyo (Kenya) and the presentation of the new KASEA newsletter. It was also the end of Marko Kuhn's several-week mission trip, which had begun with a visit to the West African network in Accra. Talks in Mwanza and Nairobi, which also involved the Kenyan KAAD partner committee, concluded a trip that once again underlined the unifying power of education, dialog and mutual commitment.
