The world came together this week, in London, to give Somalia a shot in the arm so that newly-elected President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud can get down to the business of raising his war-ravaged country out of the ashes of failed statehood.

President Uhuru Kenyatta was a key speaker at this second London conference on Somalia for many reasons. Chief among these is that Somalia is a neighbour, and Kenya has not been known to turn her back on a neighbour and friend in need.

Secondly, Kenya is host to 500,000 refugees who fled the civil war, hunger, deprivation and a militant Al Shabaab that kept Somalia  citizens under the yoke of tyranny. This is a huge economic sacrifice as this displaced mass has had significant impact on local resources, populations and altered the demographic landscape.

Some of the transit Somalis came to Kenya dragging along all that was negative in their country, such as intolerance, smuggling, corruption and terrorism. Clearly, this is unacceptable.  At the height of the civil war, more than 70,000 children were conscripted into the fighting factions in blatant disregard for their minority and innocence and in contravention of all known international covenants on the rights of the child.

Soon, heavily armed pirates made a meal out of global shipping and cost the global economy $18 billion annually in ransoms and disrupted shipping. Al Shabaab exported their murderous credo to Kenya’s urban centers and Kenya responded by sending in the Kenya Defence Forces, who made short work of their misguided philosophy.

Kenyan went a step further and facilitated free and fair elections that brought in the President Mohamud administration, replacing the dysfunctional Transitional federal Government, trained her police service, civil servants and started mobile hospitals and schools across the liberated zones.

From the first known hijacking in April 2005, 149 ships have been ransomed, for almost $385 million. But rebuilding Somalia will cost billions more.

Kenya and the world have pledged to hold the hand of the industrious Somalis as they make baby steps back to the great nation it once was.