Amuhaya Claire

By this author

Kenya's overlapping membership in regional organisations

Issue 9 from 15.10.2018

State interests are similar especially within a region as they have a lot of common objectives, and regional integration is the common avenue that most states have adopted for pursuing and achieving these shared objectives. However, it’s important to note that regardless of the shared objectives, most states will pursue their own national interests first before anything else. This has led to some countries choosing the strategy of overlapping membership hence belonging to multiple organizations within the region as is with the case of Kenya. Using realist theory and theories of integration, this article will analyse the overlapping membership of Kenya in the different regional organizations of economy and peace and security which have similar objectives. I will evaluate the commitment challenges it faces both politically and institutionally within the multiple organizations. In its quest to fulfill its vision 2030 objectives, Kenya has taken some measures which sometimes pose a challenge to integration in the region, but it has to find ways to balance them out. While trying to pursue their own “personal” interests as a country through other organizations outside the region and continent, such as the European Union, Kenya faces particular challenges in the region. Since Kenya economically is already stronger than other countries in East Africa, it is inevitable for it to not constantly face competition so it has to continually improve and better itself to maintain its status in the region. Finally, the author concludes with the measures Kenya can take to maximize and achieve its interests without compromising the need and importance of regional integration but mainly without jeopardizing its strategic and economic position in the region.  

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Foreign aid as foreign policy tool: competition of projects aid allocation to Kenya between Japan and China

Issue 12 from 13.12.2019

The concept of recipient foreign aid countries that seems so deceptively simple is undergoing tremendous evolution as the international development cooperation scene is also evolving. This change is exemplified by the inclusion of some global South countries as some of the new emerging donors. As the new emerging donors abandon some of the classical foreign aid approaches and instead include approaches like aid with low conditionality and respect of sovereignty in their model, they are successfully challenging the traditional donors in development cooperation with developing countries. Following the assumption that foreign aid is a tool for foreign policy, this article attempts to reconceptualise the donor-recipient country relationships by focusing on a traditional donor country, Japan, and an emerging global South donor country, China. It argues, using Kenya as a case study, that Japan and China in pursuit of their aid foreign policy engendered the competition of development cooperation projects in Kenya, thereby increasing Kenya’s bargaining power. This is evidenced by how Kenya sometimes designs tenders for infrastructure projects in order to gain maximum leverage. We conclude after several analyses and observations of Kenya’s annual debt management report that even though Japan had a head start to China in its foreign aid allocation to Kenya, over the years China has managed to surpass it to become Kenya’s leading external creditor. However, to both countries Kenya is of key strategic importance in East Africa, so Japan has been trying to change its aid foreign policy to compete with China by developing counter measures and as a result of this recently there has been a slightly upward trajectory in its foreign aid allocation to Kenya.

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