Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries

The Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries (French: Communauté Economique des Pays the Grand Lacs, CEPGL ) is an organization of Central African States, which is to promote friendship and cooperation. It was founded in 1976 by the regions bordering the Great Lakes States Zaire (Democratic Republic of Congo), Rwanda and Burundi. Headquarters of the Organization was Gisenyi in Rwanda.

Since December 1969 Congo - Zaire, Burundi and Rwanda had negotiated a regional economic union. Propagated objectives were initially a common refugee policy in the border areas, improve transport links with each other, sharing the gas reserves and fisheries resources of Lake Kivu and Lake Tanganyika, shared use of water power to generate energy and joint efforts towards industrialization. For this, a joint development bank was founded, the Banque de Développement des États des Grands Lacs ( BDEGL ). Long-term goal should be a common market.

However Fundamental Problems of the Economic Community were the preponderance of Congo - Zaire, the stronger orientation of Rwanda and Burundi to the East African Community and the ongoing civil war. As a result of the genocide in Rwanda, the coup in Burundi and the start of the Congo wars put the CEPGL after twenty years of its activities in 1996, first one, the three countries took each his enemy positions. After placement of Belgium, the three countries agreed in 2008 a new start scheduled for 2010, but which is so far become barely visible.