Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries

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Membership in various organizations (as of 2018)

The Economic Community of the Countries of the Great Lakes (French: Communauté Économique des Pays des Grand Lacs , CEPGL) is an organization of Central African states that aims to promote friendship and cooperation. It was on 20 September 1976 with the Treaty of Kigali in Rwanda from the Great Lakes bordering states Democratic Republic of Congo (until 1997 Zaire ), Rwanda and Burundi established. The organization was based in Gisenyi in Rwanda.

Since December 1969, Congo-Zaire, Burundi and Rwanda had been negotiating a regional economic union. Propagated goals were initially a common refugee policy in the border areas, an improvement of the traffic connections among each other, the common use of the gas and fishery resources of the Kivu and Tanganyika lakes, the common use of hydropower for the production of energy and joint efforts for industrialization. A joint development bank was set up for this purpose, the Banque de Développement des États des Grands Lacs (BDEGL). The long-term goal should be a common market.

Fundamental problems of the economic community, however, were the preponderance of the Congo-Zaire, the greater orientation of Rwanda and Burundi towards the East African community and the ongoing civil wars. As a result of the genocide in Rwanda , the coup in Burundi and the start of the Congo Wars, the CEPGL initially ceased its activities in 1996 after twenty years; the three states assumed mutually hostile positions. After Belgium mediated, the three states agreed on a new start in 2008, which has so far been barely visible.

literature

  • Dieter Nohlen (Ed.): Handbook of the Third World, Volume 5 - East Africa and South Africa. Bonn 1993, p. 535.
  • Wissenschaftslexikon24.net: Economic Community of the Countries of the Great Lakes

Web links