Regulatory Divergence and Genome Editing Governance in East African Crop Improvement Systems
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Abstract
Genome editing offers a technically feasible route to addressing several intractable constraints in East African crop production, including banana Xanthomonas wilt, cassava viral disease, striga parasitism, and maize lethal necrosis. Regulatory treatment of genome edited organisms across the region has nevertheless diverged sharply within a single customs union that permits substantially free movement of agricultural goods. This narrative review synthesises the legal instruments, institutional arrangements, and political trajectories governing genome editing in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, and the newer East African Community partner states, with Ethiopia included as a regional comparator. The review draws on peer reviewed literature, national biosafety instruments, Biosafety Clearing House records, and regional economic community policy documents published up to the middle of 2026. Findings reveal a five position gradient extending from the absence of any operative biosafety statute, through administrative moratoria, to published product based exemption guidelines. Kenya and Ethiopia have issued genome editing guidelines that exempt products lacking foreign genetic material from full biosafety review, whereas Uganda has operated for more than a decade without an assented biosafety law, and Tanzania maintains a strict liability regime alongside an administrative suspension of field research. The review introduces the Tiered Biosafety Convergence Framework, which classifies national regimes across five tiers and specifies the legal, institutional, and political preconditions required for movement between them. The framework reframes regional harmonisation as sequential tier ascent culminating in mutual recognition, rather than as simultaneous statutory reform across all partner states. Practical implications include sequencing guideline development ahead of statutory amendment, establishing a regional technical working group, and integrating biosafety determinations with existing variety release and seed catalogue systems.
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