The 24th COMESA Heads of State and Government Summit was held on 9 October 2025 in Nairobi Kenya with a call for concerted efforts to deepen intra-regional trade among the 21 Member States.
Heads of State from Burundi, Comoros, Ethiopia, Kenya and Zimbabwe were joined by Prime Ministers, Vice Presidents and other leaders from the Member States, the African Union and cooperating partners to discuss regional integration programmes being implemented in the COMESA Region.
During the Summit, His Excellency President William Ruto of Kenya took over as Chair of the COMESA Authority from Burundi’s President Evariste Ndayishimiye. Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa becomes the Vice Chair of the COMESA Authority.
The Summit discussed various issues centering on regional integration, peace and security and efforts towards the digitalization of various trade facilitation instruments.
Member States were urged to adopt and implement these instruments to increase efficiency and reduce the costs of trade including the Electronic Certificate of Origin, Electronic Cargo Tracking System, Online Non-Tariff Barriers System, National Single Windows among others many other issues.
The theme of the Summit was ‘Leveraging Digitilization to Deepen Regional Value Chains for Sustainable and Inclusive Growth’.
Four Media personnel from Burundi, Uganda and Zambia were awarded for reporting on regional integration programmes in the 2024 COMESA Media Awards Competition.