Regional PolicySocial ProtectionPeace & Security

Living the East African Integration Story

Regional integration and social policy practitioner working at the East African Community (EAC), connecting gender, youth, children, social protection, labour & peace and security into one coherent story.

"Designing frameworks that make regional integration real in people's lives, not just in treaties."
Youth & Women Leadership
Peace & Security
Child Rights & ECD
Morris Tayebwa Professional Portrait
Morris Tayebwa Casual Portrait
Morris Tayebwa speaking at Commonwealth Scholars event in London
International Youth Day celebration at EAC Headquarters
EAC team with Partner State flags in Arusha
Regional conference session with delegates

Current Focus

EAC Policy & Integration

Roles & Mandates

Where I Sit

Formal roles at the EAC Secretariat and the ecosystems around them.

EAC Secretariat

Gender, Youth & Children Expert: Supporting EAC organs to design and implement regional policies and action plans across Partner States. Previously a Private Sector & Civil Society Dialogue Expert, implementing the Consultative Dialogue Framework (CDF) and facilitating the Secretary General's Forum.

Work cuts across Sectoral Councils: Gender, Community Development, Social Protection, Education, Labour, Migration, Peace & Security.

Beyond Secretariat

Technical Resource Person: Engages as a technical resource person, moderator, writer and convener with actors such as UN Women, UNICEF, ILO, GIZ, AU-AUC, and African Child Policy Forum. Aligns their work with EAC processes and realities on the ground, helping to bridge the gap between high-level policy and community implementation.

Collaborates with regional youth and women platforms to ensure their voices shape the integration agenda.

Independent Consultant

Advisory & Consultancy: Provides strategic advisory services to international organizations, NGOs, and governments on youth policy, gender mainstreaming, social protection systems, and regional integration frameworks across Africa.

Advises on policy design and implementation for youth employment, skills development, and entrepreneurship programmes across East Africa.

Supports capacity building for civil society organizations and government agencies on gender-responsive programming and monitoring.

Flagship Initiatives

Programmes & Platforms

A snapshot of the ecosystems Morris has helped shape, convene or push forward.

youthgenderchildrenpeace
EAC Youth & Child Policy, WPS & YPS frameworks

Regional social sectors & peace/security

Supporting the design and implementation of regional policies that anchor youth, gender, children and peace & security within the EAC architecture.

Highlights:

  • Involved in the evolution and implementation of the EAC Youth Policy, Child Policy, Gender Policy, Persons with Disabilities Policy and related frameworks.
  • Co-leads or supports work on regional Women, Peace & Security (WPS) and Youth, Peace & Security (YPS) frameworks, including action plans, monitoring tools and reporting into AU systems.
youthventures
EAC Raising the Flag Project & Awareness Hub

Civic awareness & youth engagement

A youth-led concept to build an EAC civic awareness hub – combining storytelling, digital tools and offline engagement.

Highlights:

  • Designed as a platform for young people to understand, question and own the EAC integration story.
  • Links symbolic acts (raising the EAC flag) to deeper work on civic education, youth participation and policy literacy.
youth
East African Youth Capacity Building Program (EAYCBP)

Youth leadership & fellowships

A comprehensive regional fellowship and capacity-building architecture for young East Africans engaged in governance, peace, social policy and entrepreneurship.

Highlights:

  • Includes calls for fellows and host institutions, mentorship guidelines, codes of conduct, selection and assessment tools, and full communication and branding packages.
  • Anchors youth work within EAC structures, while allowing room for experimentation, peer learning and long-term networks.
children
Childcare, ECD & social protection in EAC

Children, ECD & care systems

Framing childcare and ECD as public goods, not private burdens, within EAC policy and programme work.

Highlights:

  • Contributed to regional ECD situation analyses, scorecards and implementation guidelines under the Nurturing Care Framework.
  • Advocates for integration of childcare in broader social protection and labour agendas, including recognition of unpaid care and the social workforce.
genderventures
Women's economic empowerment & cross-border trade

Gender & economic justice

Working with EAC gender and private sector directorates to centre women in intra-EAC trade and entrepreneurship.

Highlights:

  • Engages with platforms such as the East African Women in Business Platform and Women CEOs fora to spotlight cross-border traders and service providers.
  • Pushes for solutions around informality, compliance barriers, simplified trade regimes and digital trade opportunities.
childrengender
ECE, harmful practices & AU accountability processes

Child protection & accountability

Engagement with continental processes on harmful practices (FGM, child marriage) and accountability frameworks, linking AU mechanisms with regional work.

Highlights:

  • Draws on thematic studies, AU accountability frameworks and regional consultations to strengthen EAC's own child protection and EVAC architecture.
  • Emphasises the place of RECs as conveners, accelerators and mutual accountability spaces for Member States.
labouryouth
Skills, labour migration & TVET (AU & EAC)

Skills, labour & mobility

Work on skills mobility partnerships, labour migration policy and continental TVET strategy – linking EAC experiences into AU frameworks.

Highlights:

  • Engages with AU, IOM, GIZ, ILO and others on skills recognition, qualifications frameworks and diaspora skills.
  • Contributes to the conceptual structure and implementation plan for the AU Continental TVET Strategy and labour migration platforms.
venturesgenderyouth
Social enterprises & experiments

Ventures & experimentation

Parallel to institutional work, Morris nurtures ventures that test ideas on the ground: honey value chains, research & advisory, menstrual health and youth internships.

Highlights:

  • Savanna Hive: a honey and beekeeping ecosystem exploring livelihoods, value addition and cross-border trade in East Africa.
  • Socionest: a research and advisory "laboratory" for working papers, concept notes, policy briefs and academic outputs on social policy and integration.
peacegenderyouth
Peace & security: APSA, FEMWISE, youth mediators

Peace & security architecture

Contributing to the EAC's peace and security architecture with a gender and youth lens, from mediation networks to preventive diplomacy.

Highlights:

  • Involved in establishing regional and national FEMWISE (Women Mediators) chapters and youth mediation platforms, linked to the AU's APSA.
  • Works on frameworks such as the EAC Panel of Eminent Persons, Preventive Diplomacy Framework and Peace Support Operations.
Thought Leadership

Speaking & Moderation

Morris regularly contributes to regional and continental policy dialogues, often wearing multiple hats – youth advocate, gender specialist, EAC resource person, moderator, and "translator" between technical language and lived experience.

WPS & YPS Agendas

Sharing experiences from EAC NAPs, regional WPS RAP, FEMWISE and youth mediation platforms.

Child Rights & Protection

Discussions on FGM, child marriage, accountability frameworks and AU-level monitoring.

Education & Skills

Linking regional commitments to concrete pathways for young people in employment and TVET.

Speaking engagement
"Youth participation must move beyond tokenism. Regional frameworks must remain answerable to those they claim to serve."
My Journey

Professional Timeline

A chronological overview of my education, career milestones, and key achievements.

Early 2010s–mid 2010s
Formative years & grounding in social policy

Academic grounding in health, education and international development; exposure to social protection, care, gender and child-focused work.

Early experiences with community-level initiatives and regional spaces start to shape a Pan-African lens on justice, care and governance.

EAC Social Sectors
Entry into EAC social sectors & dialogue

Joins the EAC Secretariat, initially in roles focused on private sector and civil society dialogue under the Consultative Dialogue Framework (CDF).

Supports the Secretary General's Forum as a space where private sector, civil society, youth, women and professional bodies engage directly with EAC organs.

Frameworks phase
Regional frameworks, scorecards & implementation tools

Contributes to EAC policy and framework work on gender, youth, children, persons with disabilities, labour migration and social protection.

Works with AfECN and others on ECD situation analyses, scorecards and implementation guidelines, emphasising childcare as a public good.

WPS & YPS
Women, Peace & Security and Youth, Peace & Security

Deepens engagement with the WPS and YPS agendas, including national action plans, regional plans of action, monitoring frameworks and AU reporting.

Links FEMWISE, youth ambassadors, wise youth and mediation efforts to the broader AU Peace and Security Architecture (APSA).

Labour, TVET & SMPs
Skills, labour migration, TVET & mobility

Engages in continental and regional work on skills mobility partnerships, labour migration policies and the AU Continental TVET Strategy.

Works with AU, IOM, GIZ, ILO, ETF and multiple RECs on qualifications frameworks, diaspora skills, and labour market data.

Ecosystems & ventures
Building ecosystems: youth, women, social enterprises

Develops youth-centred programmes like the East African Youth Capacity Building Program and the Raising the Flag project.

Explores social enterprises including Savanna Hive, Socionest and Girl Power to test ideas on livelihoods, research, menstrual health and youth employment.

Now & next
Now & next steps (2024–2026 and beyond)

Focus on consolidating EAC WPS and YPS frameworks, ECD guidelines, social protection and childcare integration, and gender-responsive economic initiatives.

Strengthening links between EAC and AU processes, ensuring East African perspectives shape continental frameworks on EVAC, harmful practices, accountability and TVET.

Values

How I Show Up

The "operating system" beneath the projects: how I think about power, justice, care and integration.

Core Stance

Regional integration is only meaningful if it improves daily life – for border communities, unpaid caregivers, informal workers, youth on the margins and children in fragile settings.

Method

Translate – convene – document – implement. Decoding technical frameworks, convening diverse actors, and pushing towards practical implementation.

Power & Participation

Scepticism of token spaces. Youth, women and children's voices must have entry points into decision-making and accountability systems.

Care & Proximity

Lived experience – including caregiving, disability and navigating systems – is treated as knowledge. Policy design must stay close to the people it affects.

Learning & Experimentation

Iterative learning: test, document, refine, scale – always with an eye on institutionalisation. Whether through debate programmes, social enterprises or policy pilots.

Quick Facts

Domains

Youth, gender, children, social protection, labour & migration, peace & security, ECD, digital governance.

Typical Roles

Architect of frameworks, bridge-builder between institutions, coach for youth & partners.

Ecosystems

EAC organs • AU & RECs • UN agencies • youth/women networks • academia • community actors.

Connections & Presence

For speaking, advisory work, or project collaboration around youth, gender, childcare, labour, peace & security, reach out and we build from the realities on the ground.

Email Me

[email protected]

WhatsApp

+255 754 682 423