President Kagame upon arrival in Nairobi for the 14th Northern Corridor Integration Projects Summit
President Paul Kagame has arrived in Kenya’s capital Nairobi to attend the 14th Northern Corridor Integration Projects Summit.
Kagame will attend the summit alongside his Ugandan counterpart President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, Kenya’s State House announced.
The two leaders will be hosted by President Uhuru Kenyatta.
South Sudan will be represented by President Salva Kiir’s Special envoy at the summit scheduled to take place at Safari Park in Nairobi.
Burundi and Tanzania – also members of the East African Community were not mentioned to be represented.
The Northern Corridor Infrastructure Projects (NCIP) is a multilateral development initiative established in 2013 and is aimed at speeding up development in the region particularly infrastructure for ease of movement of people, goods and services.
The last summit took place in April 2016 in Kampala – Uganda.
According to State House Kenya, high on agenda at the Nairobi summit will be reviewing progress on the Standard Gauge Railway project that connects Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya.
Kenya leads in terms of progress, having completed Mombasa-Nairobi line, now embarking on Nairobi-Naivasha section which is at 50%.
On the Ugandan side, a contract with China Harbor Engineering Company was signed in 2015, and recently completed the project appraisal excercise which was held parallel to an ongoing negotiations of financing which is expected to be finalised in September this year.
In Rwanda, preliminary engineering design of the Kampala-Kigali Standard Gauge Railway line was completed in January this year, while feasibility study for Nimule-Juba SGR line on the South Sudan side is expected to be completed in December this year.
Meanwhile, other issues to be discussed during the summit include One Area Network, Oil refinery project on the Ugandan side, as well as power generation projects between member states, to mention but a few.
