While much of the attention surrounding President Yoweri Museveni’s state visit to Kenya focused on trade and infrastructure, one overlooked agreement could have the most transformative impact on local communities. The Greater Busia Metro Project.
Signed among eight new bilateral agreements, the deal proposes a unique joint urban development model straddling the Kenya-Uganda border. Leaders say the project will harmonise infrastructure, stimulate cross-border business, and reimagine Busia as a shared economic engine.
“This MoU is not just about roads and buildings,” President William Ruto said during the signing ceremony at State House Nairobi. “It’s about integrated planning that benefits communities on both sides.”
Busia town, historically a dusty transit point, has struggled with poor infrastructure, bureaucratic red tape, and trade bottlenecks. Yet it lies at the heart of East Africa’s busiest land border crossing, seeing over 2,000 trucks daily.
The proposed metro framework will address overlapping jurisdiction issues and unlock joint investment in water, sanitation, housing, and transport. It is a rare move in a region where national boundaries often hinder, rather than encourage shared urban planning.
Urban policy analysts say this model could set a precedent for other East African border towns like Namanga, Malaba, and Isebania, fostering a new generation of binational economic zones.
It also comes at a critical moment for the East African Community, whose broader goals include regional integration and a future political federation.
While steel factories and railroads made headlines, it is this cross-border urban experiment in Busia that could quietly become the most impactful legacy of this bilateral moment — if implemented with genuine community participation and sustained political goodwill.
