The Minister of State for East African Community Affairs Julius Wandera Maganda has launched campaign for re-design of East African community symbols and emblems. According to the EAC, this will help the regional re-align its current developments in the integration process.
Maganda said as part of the EAC brand architecture strategy, the regional body has proposed several initiatives that include re-designing a new EAC logo, flag and developing a common unique identifier for all organs and institutions of the community.
The competition that runs from June 1 to August 31 is exclusively open to youth (18-35 years) from the East Africa community partner states including those in the diaspora, all of who will be required to submit their work in soft copy or hard copy to EAC headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania.
According to Maganda, the competitors’ deliverables shall include one EAC emblem, 10 logos of EAC organs and EAC institutions, the EAC corporate colors, the ‘unique identifier’ that will be adopted in the emblem and logos, justification for all proposals submitted and brief demonstration of the application of the Emblem and Logos in offline and digital forms.
He said that upon hitting the deadline for submission of all projects, a committee comprising of representatives from all EAC partner states and design experts will judge the concepts handed in; designers of the short listed concepts will invited to make a formal presentations to the review panel where the first runner up will walk away with US$5,000, the second with US$ 2,500 and the winner US$ 25,000.
The current logo of the EAC features a map of Lake Victoria with the partner states Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania surrounded by an industrial wheel with a leaf arch on either side, with the letters EAC at the top. At the bottom of the emblem is a pictogram of a handshake and below written in Kiswahili are the words ‘Jumuiya ya Afrika Mashariki’ whose meaning translates into the ‘East African Community’.
