Germany approves Sh49 billion for projects in Kenya

National Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich

NAIROBI, KENYA: The Government has secured Sh49.5 billion from the German government to fund various high impact projects in the country.

The funding will go towards supporting various government initiatives including good governance, devolution, food security and drought resilience programmes, water and irrigation, education, energy, climate change, health, as well as promotion of youth employment and vocational training.

"Following successful negotiations for development cooperation between the Government of Kenya and the Federal Republic of Germany, I am pleased to sign the technical and financial cooperation agreements for 2014, 2015 and 2016, whose negotiations  took longer than expected owing to the issues related to tax and applicable laws," said Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich, adding that the total commitments for the agreements is Sh36.4 billion (311.5 million Euros) consisting of Sh29.2 billion (250 million Euros) as loans, Sh3 billion (26 million Euros) as grants for financial cooperation and Sh4.1 billion (35.5 million Euros) as grants for technical cooperation.

At the same time, according to Rotich, it was during the same protracted negotiations that the Government managed to secure commitment for an additional Sh13 billion (112 million Euros) to fund the same initiatives.

"The funding in the Kenya-German development cooperation for the coming period (2019,2020) amounts to Sh7.2 billion (62 million Euros)  new commitments consisting of Sh4.5 billion (38.9 million Euros)  as loans, Sh818 million (7million Euros)  as grants for financial cooperation and Sh1.8 billion (16.1 million Euros)  as grants for technical cooperation ," he said, adding that the funds would be channelled towards supporting technical and vocational training with Sh4.1 billion (35.9 million Euros), agriculture  with Sh2.7 billion (23.1 million Euros)  and good governance  with Sh350 million (3 million Euros).

The other Sh5.8 billion (50 million Euros), he said, would be issued as promotional grants for other high impact initiatives.