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How One Man’s Help Gives Voice To East Africa’s Private Sector

How One Man’s Help Gives Voice To East Africa’s Private Sector

Looking back over the past year at the helm of the East African Business Council, Andrew Luzze says he is a contented man.

Based in Tanzania, Luzze took over as East African Business Council executive director a year ago with an ambitious agenda to transform the region’s private sector, and he says he’s already seeing results.

The East African Business Council is the umbrella organization of the private sector in East Africa. Established in 1997, it works with governments, regional economic communities, and the business community to improve the region’s trade and investment. Members of the East African Community include Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.

“The voice of the private is becoming strong,” Luzze said recently in an AFKInsider interview. “We have seen an improvement in the representation of the private sector in the policy-making process within the East African Community. There is improvement in trade facilitation, removal of NTBs (non-tarriff barriers), issues of enhancing the capacity of the private sector, and also the willingness to listen to the private sector.”

Part of this success, he says, can be attributed to the fact that East African Business Council is now in a position to do research and engage in fact-based advocacy that is acceptable to policymakers.

An economist by profession, Luzze earned a master’s degree from Makerere University in Uganda. Now 36, he worked in the microfinance industry for five years before moving into private sector development for another five years. He joined East African Business Council as a policy analyst, rising to become executive director.

Luzze takes keen interest in matters of regional integration and private sector development. He said he is pleased that his passionate approach has rubbed off on other executives in the region’s business community. “I cannot say we have reached the level we want, but at least there is an improvement.”

The East African Community has now created a platform that gives the private sector the opportunity to bring up issues affecting their businesses. The platform, or consultative dialogue framework, allows business owners to discuss issues that can be escalated within the policy-making process, he said. “Of course, the implementation in terms of the customs union, common market and other agreed-upon positions has been slow, but at least there is response,” Luzze said.

Considering that 80 percent of East Africa’s population is engaged in the agricultural sector, Luzze said he is particularly keen to attract investors to this sector. “If we want to see trade and investment within East Africa growing, the focus should be on agro-processing. If we are able to complete the value chains within the agricultural sector, I think that would be very good. Of course, there are complementary sectors to agriculture, but the primary sector which we need to focus on is agro-processing.”

His efforts to attract investors include organizing business-to-business networking forums between East African private sector executives and their counterparts from elsewhere in the world. Under an arrangement with America’s Corporate Council on Africa, a networking forum with business people from the U.S. was held in Nairobi in February. Another with Swedish business leaders is scheduled in May in Sweden. “EABC has now been recognized as the leading institution in terms of commercial dialogue on the side of the private sector,” Luzze said.

In addition, the organization signed a memo of understanding with the French government and the Confederation of Indian Industries.

Luzze is also involved in the long, drawn-out negotiations to come up with an economic partnership agreement between the East Africa Community and the European Union, and urges flexibility in the negotiations for the benefit of all parties.

But all has not been rosy, and Luzze said he is prepared to do battle on behalf of the private sector at the highest levels of government. “We have already written to all the presidents. We have consulted our members and we have the key issues affecting the private sector we are going to present from the business community to the presidents. Mainly, this rotates around trade facilitation and making business competitive, making businesses survive. We are opening the EAC market, so we have to make our businesses competitive.”

Many of these issues, he said, center on implementation of the East African Customs Union and Common Market protocols by the East African Community partner states – Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi.

In addition, the political environment can also present difficulties. Recently, for example, the U.S. was incensed to the point of threatening sanctions when Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed into law an anti-gay bill. “I understand issues of human rights and gay rights have an impact on business, but for us our role is to tell investors to come here, to promote the East African Community from a business angle,” said Luzze.

A father of three children who live with their mother back home in Uganda – far from his office in the town of Arusha in neighboring Tanzania – Luzze is able to visit his family during his frequent travels around the region.

He plans to start a business consultancy in the next few years. “I am soon putting up my consultancy firm to handle socio-economic and trade matters. From the experience I have gained in East Africa, I can provide advisory services to the business community.”

But before that, he said he wants to implement a number of key initiatives to advance the cause of the region’s business community. “We are putting up a training unit, we are going to have a business development unit, we are putting up a platform on SMEs and another on logistics, and we are also coming up with an information hub. EABC will become a one-stop center for information regarding investment and how to do business in East Africa for investors.”