LocationsIn Nairobi, 9 Great Lakes countries shaped the REST-GLR programme around the areas, communities and priorities directly impacted.
9 Countries Take Ownership of REST-GLR
October 1, 2026
REST-GLR Inter-governmental Experts' meeting
UNDP/Michael Gathanga
How should a regional programme reflect the different realities of the countries and communities it is intended to serve?
At the border, everyday life rarely follows the lines drawn on a map. People cross to trade, work, connect with family and reach essential services. As goods move through informal and established routes, markets grow and communities on either side of a frontier remain connected by commerce, language and culture.
These same border areas face persistent constraints: fragmented markets, limited access to finance, few job opportunities for a largely young population, and insecurity that restricts movement and weakens local enterprises. Yet the activity at these borders also points to what is possible and can be achieved through regional integration.
Across the Great Lakes region, more than 300 million people live alongside freshwater systems and transport routes connecting Mombasa, Dar es Salaam and Lobito, linking the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic. The potential is visible in the movement of people and goods. The challenge is to turn that potential into opportunity that is governed, connected and shared. The Intergovernmental Experts' Meeting in Nairobi was the next step towards that goal.
The programme began with the places where regional integration is experienced most directly: border communities and economic corridors.
Governments and local authorities were consulted through the community ground-truthing dialogues. Technical working groups examined the programme's design, while regional organizations contributed through the write-shop. 7 economic corridors and 4 proposed outputs provided the initial framework.
On 10 and 11 September, 9 delegations gathered in Nairobi under the flags of Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
The meeting was hosted by the Government of Kenya and convened by the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) with the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Office of the United Nations Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region and UNDP.
The High-Level panel at the REST-GLR Experts' Meeting in Nairobi, Kenya
UNDP/Michael Gathanga
Kenya's Principal Secretary for Trade, Ms. Regina Ombam, opened the meeting by asking the room to rethink what peace requires.
"Peace is not merely the absence of war; it is the presence of shared opportunity, mutual reliance and dignity for every community."Ms. Regina Ombam, Principal Secretary for Trade, Kenya
Security interventions alone, she noted, will not deliver lasting peace. It is strengthened when communities have functional markets, public services and institutions that let them take part fully in economic and social life. After decades of instability, displacement and hardship, she described the region as one now on a new path anchored in resilient trade and deeper integration.
Her vision, and that shared by everyone present, was for frontier areas to become vibrant development corridors, where trade is open, fair and safe.
"Economic interdependence in our borderlands therefore raises the cost of conflict while increasing the benefits of cooperation," she said.
She was specific about how to get there: stronger cross-border trade, better logistics and infrastructure, standardised border procedures, gender-responsive trade facilities, and refugee communities integrated into regional value chains. “Together,” she said, “these measures will make the benefits of peace tangible in the daily lives of our citizens."
Kenya's Principal Secretary at the State Department for Trade, Ms. Regina Ombam delivering her opening remarks at the REST-GLR Experts' Meeting in Nairobi.
UNDP/Michael Gathanga
The task set out was to approach the validation exercise with seriousness and commitment, and to leave with a programme that is practical, adequately sequenced, sustainably financed and responsive to the institutional arrangements needed for implementation. Specific focus was on strategic positioning, the architecture of interventions, visibility and impact, integration priorities, governance arrangements, and financing and investment models.
The partners had seen the opportunity in the borderlands. Significant attention, however, would be on national priorities, national institutions and national decisions to give those opportunities a route to implementation.
ICGLR Executive Secretary Dr. Mubita Luwabelwa put the principle at the centre of the discussion.
"For this to succeed, it must belong to the region. Not to ICGLR, not to COMESA, not to EAC and not to UNDP either," he said. "It must not belong to any single institution. It must belong to our Member States."
"For this to succeed, it must belong to the region. Not to ICGLR, not to COMESA, not to EAC and not to UNDP either. It must not belong to any single institution. It must belong to our Member States."Dr. Mubita Luwabelwa, ICGLR Executive Secretary
He connected ownership to the conditions that make economic activity possible.
"There can be no trade without security. No investment without the rule of law. No integration when border communities feel left behind. And no lasting peace where young people see no opportunity."
Delegates affirmed the relevance of REST-GLR and then revised how it would be taken forward. Member States will determine the border communities, economic nodes, value chains and infrastructure priorities of their national components. They may connect these priorities to production centres, logistics networks and infrastructure. The corridor approach remains the strategic frame, while country consultations will establish the final geography and focus of each national component.
Delivery will be organized at national and regional levels. National institutions will lead country-level implementation, while regional institutions provide support, including regional public goods and cross-border cooperation.
In each country, the lead ministry coordinating the Country Programme Document with UNDP will provide national leadership. The National Delivery Platform will become a National Steering Committee under government leadership, bringing together planning and finance, foreign affairs and regional integration, trade, transport, energy, local government, home affairs and gender. The private sector and civil society will sit alongside them.
In response to Member State guidance, REST-GLR will expand from four outputs to five, with a dedicated focus on infrastructure and connectivity, the logistics and border-procedure agenda the host Government had put forward in its opening address.
Delegates during the Inter-Governmental Experts' Meeting held in Nairobi.
UNDP/Michael Gathanga
This approach will ensure ownership becomes visible in the geographical context of the programme, the composition of its steering structures and the resources it is designed to mobilize.
For Dr. Zeynu Ummer, Director of the UNDP Resilience Hub for Africa, the shift begins with how borderlands are understood.
He asked what happens when they are no longer seen principally as margins of development but are treated as catalysts for economic transformation and peace.
The answer was grounded in the process that brought the programme to Nairobi: a proposition that has gradually become a regional proposition owned and shaped by many partners.
The national dimension, he noted, connects regional markets to the people expected to benefit from them.
"Connecting our people with the markets, connecting our people, with the development, with economic benefit and the value chains, is something that really needs a lot of effort and extra commitment."Dr. Zeynu Ummer, Director, UNDP Resilience Hub for Africa
A corridor is not only a line between a port and a production centre. It is also the trader seeking a route to a buyer and the local market operating beside a frontier.
Each Member State will review the indicative cost of its national component and identify the resources available to it, including national budget allocations, government financing, aligned public investment programmes, concessional borrowing and other instruments.
Where financing gaps remain, regional partners will help build a structured pipeline and convene development partners, development finance institutions, foundations and private investors around those gaps.
The sequence is deliberate: national commitment comes first, and external resources are intended to leverage it.
UN Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region Huang Xia described the sessions as encompassing the importance of ownership by Member States, the relevance of an economic corridor approach, the need to clarify institutional arrangements and the urgency of mobilizing adequate resources to move from programme design to implementation.
Dr. Luwabelwa credited UNDP with helping the region "navigate complex consultations, align diverse stakeholders, and arrive at this moment of validation." The outcome was not a programme handed to the region, but one refined through regional and national contributions.
Special Envoy Huang Xia called on Member States, regional institutions, development partners, financial institutions, foundations and the private sector to support the next stage.
"Investing in REST-GLR means investing in peace, stability and shared prosperity in the Great Lakes region."Huang Xia, UN Special Envoy for the Great Lakes Region
The work now moves back to the countries and communities that gave the programme its starting point. There, the broad regional proposition will be tested against specific places, priorities and resources, and against the standard Kenya's Principal Secretary set at the opening: whether the benefits of peace become tangible in people's daily lives.