The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) comprises seven countries: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. Eritrea, which joined IGAD in 1993, suspended its membership in mid-2007. IGAD’s original mandate comprised measures to combat desertification and to prevent famine disasters. It was extended in 1996. Since then, the organisation’s most important tasks have included economic integration, protection against natural disasters, food security and political and humanitarian matters. Thus a new era of cooperation among the countries of the Horn of Africa was launched.

IGAD aims to achieve the political, economic and social integration of its Member States in order to guarantee peace and security in the region, to attain sustainable economic growth and to improve the living conditions of some 200 million people.

The region continues to be hit by the effects of international and internal conflicts, economic problems, food crises and humanitarian disasters. The mechanisms of the IGAD Member States, which provide for peaceful coexistence and the efficient implementation of the common development objectives, have to be further developed. IGAD must take initiatives here that show the added value and specific benefit of the organisation for its members. This represents the greatest challenge for the IGAD Secretariat in Djibouti.

In a strategy paper in 2002, the IGAD Secretariat focused on promoting peace and security in the region. Cross-border problems are to be resolved through intervention at the political level and through regional programmes.

Since 1990, GTZ has been supporting the IGAD Secretariat on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in contributing to peace and security and implementing joint development objectives in the Member States. To this end the competence of the IGAD Secretariat in the institutional sector (organisational development) and in the specialised technical sector is to be strengthened.

Download

• Agreement Establishing the IGAD, Assembly of Heads of State and Government
  Nairobi, March 1996
  en-agreement-establishing-igad.pdf, 0.05 MB (English)

• GTZ projects with IGAD
  Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD)

Further information

• Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) in Eastern Africa
  http://www.igad.org