With more than 200 million active speakers in Africa, Kiswahili is now recognized as one of the official languages of the African Union, the Secretariat of the Southern African Development Community and the East African Community, the ECA highlighted on its social network account X.

The executive secretary of that UN Commission, Claver Gatete, said that ‘thanks to the late President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Kiswahili has flourished as a language of unity, business, trade and commerce.

Without a unifying language we cannot make progress in our development goals’.

Under the slogan ‘Kiswahili Education and Culture of Peace’, the event was also attended by the director of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s Liaison Office with the African Union and ECA, Rita Bissoonauth, ambassadors from Kiswahili-speaking countries, among other guests.

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