About 14 heads of state, including Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and the new South African president, Kgalema Motlanthe are scheduled to attend the Tripartite Summit in Kampala. Also, they are expected to provide a panacea to the continent’s under-development.

The 26 countries are from the East African Community (EAC), the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

According to Uganda’s daily New Vision newspaper, Uganda’s Minister for East African affairs Eriya Kategaya told journalists at the Media Centre last Friday that the five leaders of the EAC had confirmed their presence. These are Paul Kagame (Rwanda), Jakaya Kikwete (Tanzania), Mwai Kibaki (Kenya) and Pierre Nkurunziza (Burundi).

Other leaders expected are the heads of state of South Africa, Sudan, Malawi, Madagascar, Zambia, Botswana, Seychelles, Egypt, Mauritius and Lesotho.

The East, Central and Southern African region is home to more than half of Africa’s population. It is also home to three powerful regional economic and political organizations - the East African community comprising Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi. COMESA countries consisting of 19 countries - Burundi, Egypt, Madagascar, Sudan Comoros, Eritrea, Malawi, Swaziland, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Mauritius, Uganda, Djibouti, Kenya, Rwanda, Zambia, Libya, Seychelles and Zimbabwe.

SADC (South African Development community) is the most powerful organization. It comprises Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa, Mauritius, DR Congo and Madagascar.

Uganda’s minister of Foreign Affairs Sam Kutesa defended the US $1.5 million expenditure on the summit. “The multiplier effect after spending this money on conferences is huge. Since we held CHOGM, we have received 100,000 more tourists and $300m additional in investment,” he noted.

The chairperson of the EAC Coordination Committee, Charles Gasana, advocated for the region to rely more on trade than on aid. “We have others to take advantage of our abundant resources in the name of trade, investment, aid and other catch-words,” Gasana said. He added: “We should aim at enhancing trade between ourselves and the international community to improve our wealth, employment and our overall economic well-being.”