Kenya-Ethiopia railway deal is historic

President Uhuru Kenyatta and First Lady Margaret Kenyatta receive Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn and First Lady Roman Tesfaye on arrival for the State Visit offical reception at State House, Nairobi on June 23, 2016.

Kenya and Ethiopia’s decision to establish a Joint Railway Commission and a Project Co-ordination Committee, last month, to implement a bilateral agreement signed in March 2012 is as historic as it is significant.

The decision is historic because it brings together a country that was never occupied by a colonial power—Ethiopia—and another that had to wage a bloody war of liberation before gaining independence. It is worth noting that although the colonial power sought to knit together the economies of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania, the latter two were never colonised although they were administered by Great Britain as a protectorate and a trustee territory respectively.