The first official visit of the Ugandan government delegation after the death of the former Ethiopian Prime minister Meles Zenawi, led by the President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, saw the two countries signing four agreements that focused on infrastructure development like electricity and road development.
The agreements that the ministers of the two countries signed were said to formalise and cement the two countries’ cooperation and strengthen their mutual interests until the next joint ministerial meetings of the two countries, according to PM Hailemariam Dessalegn.
The first agreement of the two countries was made between the Ethiopian Foreign Affairs Minister Tewodros Adhanom and his Ugandan counterpart Henry Okello Oryem to cooperate in the health sector. The two countries are among the better performers in achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG), especially in terms of the reduction of child mortality and improving maternal health.
In the wider range, Africa has halted and reversed the spread of HIV/AIDS, with a drop in prevalence rates from 5.9pc in 2001 to 4.9pc in 2011, according to the 2014 MDG report. The top rows of these performers are graced by the presence of Uganda in place of them.
And as the MDG report of Ethiopia for the year 2010 indicates, the under-five mortality rate has decreased from 167 out of 1,000 in 2001/02 to 123 out of 1,000 in 2005/06 and the infant mortality rate has declined to 77 per 1,000 live births in 2004/05 from 97 per 1,000 live births in 2001/02. In 2009/10 the under-five mortality rates and infant mortality rates decreased to 101 per 1,000 and to 45 per 1,000 live births, respectively. This number is even expected to decline to 31 per 1,000 live births by 2014/15.
The other agreement that the two countries signed was on the sector of transportation. The Ethiopian Minister of Transportation, Workineh Gebeyehu and the Ugandan Minister of State for International Affairs Okelo Oryem signed the agreement on cooperating in the development of transportation infrastructure. The PM, making a point on this, said that his government wished that the Ethiopia-Juba railway construction could extend to Kampala, Uganda.
This time, believing that economic integration should come first from the political integration that the continent is planning to achieve by 2063, the Ethiopian government is constructing a 1,500 Km railway on the Ethiopia-Kenya and Ethiopia-Djibouti corridors, Hailemariam said. Both countries’ stand regarding the economic integrity is a shared belief, which Musevini has been reflecting since the time of the late Meles Zenawi.
“Infrastructure remains critical to enhance our development endeavors. Lack of adequate infrastructure has been the main bottleneck for the development of trade and investment in our sub-region,” stated Hailemariam, who stressed that this has to change.
The PM also expressed his belief in the participation of Uganda in the power interconnection extending from Ethiopia, citing that the already connected Kenya and Uganda line will be used for the transmission of the electricity that Kenya is going to have when the transmission line from Ethiopia is completed.
This idea was also backed up by the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that the two countries signed to cooperate in the energy sector. This was signed between the Ethiopian Minister for Water, Irrigation & Energy Alemayehu Tegenu and his counterpart from Uganda, Simon D’ujang. The MoU signing was finalized by the signing of the sisterly relationship agreement between Addis Abeba and Kampala by the Mayor of Addis Diriba Kuma and by the Executive Director of Kampala Capital City Authority Jennifer Musisi.
The visit of the delegation atmosphere seems to be mixed up by the concern over the peace and stability problems in the sub-region and delight with the consensus that the two reached at on the cooperation.
“Our sub region is one of the most complex and turbulent regions in the world.… most of the countries in the sub region suffer from protracted political strife, arising from local and national grievance and from regional inter-state rivalries,” Hailemariam expressed.
The creation of sustainable peace and security in the region can be ensured only if the region fully cooperates to end these problems, the PM said.
The Ethiopian government was not happy with the deployment of Ugandan troops to the war torn, or the “dead lock” as Hailemariam puts it, region of South Sudan claiming to protect the Ugandan citizens working there.
“I must thank your Excellency and your government for the important role you have played to bring about peace and stability to South Sudan,” said Hailemariam. This seems a change in stance.
Musevini, when asked of the evacuation time of the troops he has in South Sudan, he, somewhat relaxed and unconcerned about the issue, said that it has not yet been decided.
“We are not there to seek jobs and we will stay there until the city of Juba and its citizens are safe to live their normal lives,” he said.
The President, referring to the time that the two countries are currently in, said that they are in the time of resurrection and they “don’t want this to be interrupted by the woregna (talkatives)”.
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