In September 2018, six African nations met and formed a committee to begin drafting a constitution to create a single federated sovereign state called the East African Federation. The goal of this was to create a unified country with a common market, a single currency, and a shared cultural identity, similar to how the United States created a single country out of many different individual states. And I don't know about
you, but I love this type of stuff. So I wanted to make a video to see if this is really possible. And if so, what type of nation would arise out of it and what challenges such a country would face. For starters, like I said before, the East African Federation, or EAF for short, would consist as it stands now of six countries: Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, and South Sudan. As a single country, the EAF would cover an area of 2.5 million square kilometers, making it bigger than both the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Algeria, which means it would become the biggest country in Africa. Globally, the EAF would then become the tenth largest country in the world, just smaller than Kazakhstan. The total population here would be 179 million, meaning the EAF would come out as only the second most populated country in Africa, still behind Nigeria, which has a population of nearly 186 million people currently. That's still enough people, however, to make the EAF the eighth most populated country on the planet and would have more people than countries like Russia, Mexico, and Japan. The similarities between Japan's population and that of the EAF end there however, as Japan has the second oldest population in the world with a median age of 47.3 years, while the opposite is true for the countries of the EAF. Uganda, for example, is the second youngest country on Earth with a median age of only 15.8 years old and the rest of the EAF isn't far behind. Burundi's median age is only 17 years old and the South Sudan's is only 17.3 years. Out of these six countries, Kenya has the highest average age at 19.7 years old. Overall, the combined average of the EAF would only be 17.8 years old, and would rank as the 11th youngest country in the world if it existed today. Staying on population, the most populated city within the EAF would be Dar es Salaam, currently located in Tanzania, which is the sixth the biggest city in all of Africa with a population of over 4.3 million. For some comparison, Los Angeles the second-largest city in the United States has a smaller population of just barely 4 million. And the best European comparison to make would be to say bigger than Berlin, but smaller than St. Petersburg. Other big cities of the EAF include the Kenyan city of Nairobi, with a population of over 3 million, which is bigger than Chicago in the US, and roughly the same size as Madrid in Europe, and Kampala in Uganda with a population of 1.3 million, comparable to Dallas in the US or Milan in Europe. But maybe the most important city after Dar es Salaam would be the Kenyan city of Mombasa, which serves as the biggest seaport in the region. It's likely through this city that the EAF would receive most or all of its imports and it would be from Mombasa that most of its exports would leave. The port already serves as a major economic and cultural hub for Kenya and this role would only expand once it became the main shipping route for the interior countries as well, making the city vital for the country's economy. Despite their size, however, none of these cities are the proposed capital of the EAF. That honor instead falls upon the city of Arusha, back in Tanzania. At first, this might seem like a strange choice, as Arusha only has a population of a little over 400,000. That's roughly 1/10 the size as Dar es Salaam and is most comparable to the city of Minneapolis in the United States. But what it lacks in size, Arusha makes up for in historical significance to the region. You see, this city has served as the center for diplomacy for several east African affairs. It was here that the Burundi Civil War was brought to an end through the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement, helping to re-establish peace in the country of Burundi. When South Sudan's ruling SPLM political party nearly fell apart and left the country in a state of humanitarian crisis, it was the Arusha Agreement for South Sudan that started constructing a plan for reunification. After the Rwandan Genocide, it was Arusha that was chosen to host the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. If I had to make another comparison, I'd say Arusha is sort of like the East African Geneva, famous for such works as the Geneva Conventions, hosting several United Nations agencies and even organizations like the Red Cross. Similarly, Arusha serves as a neutral location for a capital as this city has played a vital diplomatic role not only for Tanzania, but for the region as a whole. Also, it's fairly central (geographically speaking) within the proposed country, which creates a more shared sense of control and doesn't really give one country all the power. Perhaps most importantly, however, Arusha has been serving as the headquarters of the east african community the precursor to the eaf Which got its started all the way back in? 1967 it was the East African community that in 2010 designed the East African common market protocol with the goal of creating an open economic zone where goods people Capital and services can cross borders freely hopefully promoting economic growth and development The protocol came complete with their own currency the East African shilling Which actually existed once before when this region was under British colonial rule and only went out of use in? 1966 when the East African shilling was split up into the Kenyan Schilling the Ugandan Schilling and the Tanzanian you guessed it shilling Behind it. This currency would be a country with a combined GDP of 472 billion US dollars putting it roughly on par with Chile or the US state of Washington and would replace Austria to become the 43rd biggest economy in the world This might sound moderate to impressive but the EAF has almost 30 times more Surface area and has a population that's 20 times bigger than Austria and this sheds light on one of the first and perhaps Biggest issues that would plague the EAF money inside Africa the EAF would be the fifth biggest economy But considering its size and population that's still a relatively low number. This gives the potential country a GDP per capita of only $2,600 per person placing it just above Chad and just below Senegal making it the 30th on the continent and 158th in the world for some context there are only 54 countries in Africa and well about 190 countries in the world total, so yeah, not great And as a result, unfortunately poverty would be a prevalent issue throughout many parts of the country Especially in the former countries of South Sudan and Burundi which are currently some of the poorest countries on the planet Money isn't the only challenge that would face the EAF if they did in fact unite and there are actually a couple other issues that could potentially pose a greater threat to a sustained unity when considering the viability of a potential united country. Religion is always a major aspect and for many parts of the world a dominant religion is necessary for peace and unification The most common religion in this region is by far Christianity which holds a majority in all six constituent countries but that doesn't necessarily mean there's religious unity the most Christian countries are the two smaller Western ones with 94% of Rwanda 's population following some sort of Christian faith and 91 percent of Burundi doing the same This is followed by Uganda with 85 percent and Kenya with 83 percent that leaves the two lowest majority countries Which are Tanzania with only 61 percent and South Sudan also with about 61 percent overall 140 million Christians live here making up 78% of the population that's actually more Christian than a country like the United States Which is only 72 percent Christian where these two countries differ However is their second two largest religious group in the United States. The next biggest group is unaffiliated people So atheists agnostics and people who typically don't practice religion whereas five of the six EAF countries have significant Islamic populations making up their second largest religious group with Tanzania hosting a population. That's 35 percent Muslim now I have to be careful saying this and just know I'm not saying either religion is inherently violent But let's just say Christians and Muslims have a long history of attacking and killing each other remember the Crusades And as a result countries that have significant populations of both Christians and Muslims have had greater difficulty maintaining Peace and unity just ask the Balkan states a good example of the divided religion can create can be found by looking at a map like this which shows the ratio of Muslims to Christians throughout Africa the darker the green means the more Muslim majority the country is the dark and the blue Yeah the more Christian it is you get it and well for starters if you ever Why I don't think a unified Africa is ever possible This is a start but what I'd really like to zoom in on here is Sudan now this map was assembled in 2010 so it doesn't include the newly formed country of South Sudan which split away from Sudan to become independent in 2011 but you can actually still make out almost the exact shape of it just by looking at the distribution of Muslims and Christians here This isn't a coincidence as religion played a huge role in dividing the once unified Sudan and reveals. Just how Important religious unity can be for certain states to maintain hegemony again I'm not saying either one of these religions is especially Oppressive towards the other but it can be hard to get them to play nice with each other sometimes and for a newly established Country could pose a challenge to creating a cooperative state that being said another look at this map will show you the overall Eaf would still be more religiously unified than other countries in Africa like Nigeria or nearby Ethiopia Which is hopefully a sign that peace between religions could be had within the EAF it's also important to remember that another large portion of the population here adhere to the general category of Traditional African beliefs these vary widely, but typically are spiritual or animist in nature the important difference here however Is that a lot of the time people can be both Christian as well as maintaining some of their own beliefs becoming sort of dual? Religion the same way some people can be dual language This makes it sort of difficult to get a head count on total believers But the greatest numbers can be found in South Sudan with an estimated 33 percent of the population being part of a traditional African belief But because they can sometimes mesh into other religions and don't necessarily have a strict belief regimen these are far less of a threat to maintaining peace than other organized religion not always of course, but for the most part Okay, and lastly I wanted to talk about climate and geography a little so almost a year ago I made a video titled how geography doomed Africa and well, you've probably seen it considering it has more views than I have subscribers But real quick I shared the idea that because Africa is arranged vertically so that it's taller than it is wide this created much smaller climate zones Which impeded the African people's ability to unify by creating different cultures And now I'd like to apply this idea to the East Africa federación this time. We'll be using the köppen climate classification Scheme, and we can see that there are still a high degree of variability within the continent as this map and therefore the continent contains 13 total different climate classifications But if you focus in on just the eaf we can see that there's much greater Congruence throughout containing within the EAF only eight of the climate classifications. This is a little misleading However, because just looking at the map we can see the majority of its territory. Is this light blue color? Representing a tropical savanna, which dominates the East African region? This is good because having a single persistent climate throughout means a similar culture can develop among the people who live here, you know They can grow the same crops raise the same animals cook the same foods and talk about the weather stuff that typically brings people together And makes them friendly on top of this if we separate and look at each country individually We can see each one roughly has the same climate types again all with a tropical savanna climate This is important because let's say there was one country included that had a drastically different climate it would potentially be too different from the other countries to get along and maybe even create a large divide within the Population the largest patch of land not included in this tropical savanna is this warm semi-arid climate found running through Tanzania however, I don't see this as a big issue because if you're unfamiliar with African geography This is the Serengeti one of the most famous natural ecosystems on the planet where Lions roam giraffes graze Cheetahs hunt and the great migration of nearly 2 million wildebeest takes place every year several national parks and reserves are located within this area and in overall who's some very small human population the Predominant people group who do live here are the Masai people a semi-nomadic? group with a population of around 2 million people shared between mostly Kenya and Tanzania In terms of threatening unity the Masai people and the Serengeti pose little to no issue as the Maasai are peaceful and the Serengeti Actually helps create a stronger identity For East Africa and is something the country as a whole can take pride in as a whole I'd say Geography and climate are definitely on the side of the East African Federation Of course There's a lot more that goes into uniting a country and we'll just have to wait to see if anything actually ends up happening Here if you want to keep updated on this, maybe you should check out my patreon page as it helps Keep me and this channel running so that I can inform you. 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