Spain offers more than just La Liga, let’s partner more

Spain’s Head of Mission in Kenya Javier García de Viedma

One of the pleasant surprises I had upon my arrival to Kenya more than two years ago, was to notice how much Kenyans know about Spanish football, especially Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Not only do they name the players of both teams by heart, but in any corner of the country, no matter how far away, you can find children and youngsters wearing the shirts of both teams. There is no doubt that football awakens passions, but it is also a means of giving alternatives and dreams to people, especially to the youth. It is not by chance that La Liga already has a representative in Kenya.

On the other hand, we Spaniards are well aware of the quality and performance of Kenyan athletes. However, let me invite you to go beyond and discover the country behind the colours of those football shirts.

You’ll see a country open to the world. A country whose National Day, October 12th, commemorates the Discovery of America and this year celebrates the 500 years of the first world circumnavigation, carried out by a Spanish expedition, which originated the very first globalisation.

If you travel to Spain you will immediately perceive our deep Europeanism. Coming from a country like Kenya, which bets on regional integration, you will not be surprised to know that Spanish people consider our accession to the European Union as one of the most important events in our recent history. More than 30 years later, we have become one of the main economies of Europe and we share with the EU priorities such as democracy, the rule of law, human rights or environment protection.

Those who perceive Spain as a faraway country will be surprised when they discover that Spain is proud of something many people ignore: we are the closest European country to Africa. This physical closeness has made us turn to the neighbouring continent. We share history, culture and mostly the future with Africa. Our Government this year approved a new edition of the Africa Plan, which considers Africa as the continent of the future with a young, dynamic and entrepreneurial population. The times of patronising are over. Welcome to the era of partnership. As you can imagine, the relations between Kenya and Spain go beyond the football pitch. Both countries share amazing similarities. Apart from size and population, our territorial structure is similar. Spain is one of the most decentralised countries in the world, where regions have large resources to develop their autonomy.

This opens interesting ways of cooperation with Kenya, which is implementing its devolution model, as we could see some months ago in a seminar jointly organised by the Spanish Embassy and Strathmore University. We compared our constitutions, both still young: Spain’s has just turned 40 and Kenya’s will soon be 10.

Another priority area is tourism. Spain is one of the most visited countries. More than 85 million people visit every year, generating more than Sh10 trillion. Like in Kenya, tourism accounts for 13% of our economy. Besides, Madrid hosts the World Tourism Organisation, and Kenya will chair its Executive Council in 2020. This will strengthen the cooperation between both countries as important tourist destinations.

Spain fully backs Kenya’s Big Four Agenda, and we can really help implement it. Together with tourism, many Kenyans may be interested to know there are Spanish companies present in other relevant sectors for Kenya, like infrastructure, energy, fisheries or new technologies, just to mention a few.

Allow me to mention a field in which Kenya and Spain are unfortunately closely linked: the fight against terrorism. Both countries approach it from the principles of cooperation and solidarity and it is in this spirit that Spain is promoting security in the Horn of Africa through the deployment of troops in the training mission of the EU in Somalia (EUTM) or by assuming the operative command in operation ATALANTA to fight piracy in the Indian Ocean.

In June, our Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, Josep Borrell, officially visited Kenya. It was a visit that was long overdue, which proved how close our two countries are and opened areas of great possibilities such as Spanish language teaching, cultural, university and scientific cooperation, and commercial relations.

Finally, do not stop watching La Liga. You’ll enjoy it.

-The writer is Spain’s Head of Mission in Kenya