Museveni Pledges to Revitalise EASF, Convene Summit After 12-Year Hiatus

What the report says

President Yoweri Museveni has pledged to raise the Eastern Africa Standby Force (EASF) with fellow East African Community leaders and push for its summit to resume after a long break. According to SoftPower News, he made the commitment at State House in Entebbe after meeting Brig Gen Ronald Rwivanga, who heads the regional force’s secretariat.

The report says Museveni was briefed on the EASF’s work and on the need to strengthen the mechanism. The summit has not met since 2014, leaving the body without the regular high-level political forum that is meant to guide its direction. Museveni’s intervention is intended to help revive that decision-making structure.

The EASF is a regional standby force associated with the East African Community and wider African peace and security arrangements. In general terms, such bodies are designed to support rapid response to crises, peace support operations and regional coordination, although the specific future steps were not detailed in the SoftPower News account.

The pledge matters because it suggests renewed political attention to a regional security institution that has been dormant at summit level for more than a decade. The article does not say when the summit will be called, only that Museveni intends to engage other heads of state.