South Sudan Joins East African Community Bloc

South Sudan has finally been admitted into the East African Community as the sixth member state.

The 17th Ordinary Heads of State Summit in Arusha in Tanzania took the decision on Wednesday 2nd of February 2016. 

South Sudan’s admission to the EAC ends several years of waiting to join the regional bloc, comprising Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda.

It should be noted that South Sudan applied for EAC membership soon after gaining its independence from Sudan in 2011, but the process of its admission delayed for a number of reasons, key among them being internal conflicts.

According to the treaty establishing the EAC, new members can only be admitted if they respect the principles of democracy, rule of law, accountability, transparency and social justice.

The treaty also says the countries must, besides being geographically near any of the existing members, practice "equal opportunities, gender equality as well as recognising, promoting and protecting rights in accordance with the provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.

Some observers say the move to admit the world’s youngest nation into the East African community is timely, as its people have for long been struggling with a crumbling economy following a two-year devastating civil war.

Others however say this new development is both good news and relatively bad at because South Sudan’s economy is not sufficiently developed to compete with EAC member states and could thus become a ‘dumping ground’ for Kenyan, Tanzanian, and Ugandan imports. 

Another point of worry is that South Sudan has an estimated population of over 12 million people out of which only 20% is literate, while the remaining 80 percent are illiterate. This thus means the country has little or no human capital at all to compete with other members of East Africa Community.