Ride on TICAD to attract foreign investments to Kenya

Nairobi will once again host a global conference when 10,000 foreign delegates converge on the Kenyatta International Convention Centre for the sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) starting this Friday.

This is another affirmation that Kenya is well on its way to positioning itself as the hub of conferencing in sub-Saharan Africa given that this will be the third summit Nairobi will host in the last 13 months. The Global Entrepreneurial Summit attended by US President Barack Obama last July and the United National Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) summit last month not only served as a precursor to TICAD, the hundreds of investors who attended were on a fishing expedition to establish the viability of Kenya as an investment hub in sub-Saharan Africa. Nairobi was not selected as co-host of the summit by chance — TICAD conferences are intended to help promote high-level policy dialogue among African leaders and their development partners — and Kenya as one of the biggest recipients of support from Japan, was the natural choice. Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA) to Africa stands at $32 billion (Sh3.2 trillion), including $16 billion (Sh1.6 trillion) for public-private ventures. Kenya is the leading recipient of the Japanese ODA in sub-Saharan Africa which cumulatively stands at approximately Sh445 billion.

Japan supports many transformative programmes in Africa by way of grants, loans and technical expertise from its teams of well trained professionals. In Kenya the Olkaria project, sponsored programmes at Jomo Kenyatta University of Science and Technology (JKUAT), and the expansion of Mombasa Port among others have substantial input from the Japanese government.

There will be plenty of benefits for hosting this summit. The government estimates that TICAD will generate direct cash inflow of Sh12 billion, significantly higher than the UNCTAD conference which brought about 7,000 delegates to Nairobi and injected approximately Sh6 billion directly into the economy.

Therefore, let us use TICAD to learn useful lessons from the 100 or so business gurus from Japan who will be accompanying their Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Nairobi. But beyond that, let us create a business environment that encourages foreign direct investments. Local captains of industry have repeatedly said that Kenya will remain uncompetitive in business if the electricity tariffs remain as high as they are, and the rigid licensing regime is not relaxed. The handicap to investment will continue to be State corruption and this is something we must relentlessly work at eliminating.