Kenya not facing East or West but on devt Kenyatta

President Uhuru Kenyatta has said that Kenya is more focused on development than the alignments based on its development partners.

Speaking at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES) 2015 at Gigiri in Nairobi, President Kenyatta said the country cannot afford to choose whether to work with the East or the West at the expense of its development.

“In this new paradigm, we cannot afford the luxury of the old language of East versus West. Kenya is aligned to neither; we are, firmly and irreversibly, aligned to progress,” said President Kenyatta.

President Kenyatta emphasised the need to base the relationship between Africa and the rest of the world on mutual benefit where people and resources are leveraged to secure economic growth.

He pointed out the growth of M-PESA, M-Kopa and the achievement of athlete Julius Yego as signs that the country is well endowed in talent and innovation.

According to some diplomatic relations experts, Kenya’s foreign policy seems to have shifted since President Kenyatta took office in 2013 with several business deals and infrastructural engagements, like the multi-billion shilling Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project, going to China.

President Kenyatta made his first post-inauguration trip abroad to Russia and China skipping the United States, considered Kenya’s sixth-largest trading partner and a major aid donor.

Kenyatta’s seemingly strained relationship with the West came in the run up to the 2013 elections after some U.S. officials warned that their victory may complicating U.S. engagements with Kenya due to their policy on their interaction with International Criminal Court (ICC) inductees.

President Kenyatta’s case was, however, thrown out for lack of sufficient evidence while that of his Deputy William Ruto is still ongoing.

The Kenyan Head of State made his first visit to the United States in 2014 for the US-Africa leaders summit in what appeared to be a warm up to the new relations.

It is now a wait-and-see whether Kenyatta’s statement is a warm up to the West and more so the United States which has been Kenya’s main proponent in the war against terrorism.