The month of February kicked off with the East African Community (EAC) Annual Summit that took place on February 1, in Arusha Tanzania. The Rwandese president, Paul Kagame became the chair of the EAC, replacing Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni. This comes at a time when Rwanda is not on good terms with its two neighbors Uganda and Burundi.
It should be noted that the summit had earlier been postponed due to Burundi’s last minute boycott. According to Burundi, there are unresolved issues between the two countries and Burundian President Pierre Nkurunziza has been pushing the EAC leadership to consider convening an extraordinary summit to address the differences between his country and Rwanda. Interestingly, Paul Kagame is the chairperson of the regional organization.
Rwanda is scaling up its terms of economic and political ties. Just this month, Israel opened its first embassy in Rwanda. Mr. Ron Adam, the new Israel Ambassador, pledged that his country would support agriculture and cyber-security.
