Travel Tips - Kenya

Kenya INFORMATIONS

Kenya served as an important mediator in brokering Sudan's north-south separation in February 2005; Kenya provides shelter to approximately a quarter of a million refugees including Ugandans who flee across the border periodically to seek protection from Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels; Kenya's administrative limits extend beyond the treaty border into the Sudan, creating the Ilemi Triangle.

Founding president and liberation struggle icon Jomo KENYATTA led Kenya from independence until his death in 1978, when President Daniel Toroitich arap MOI took power in a constitutional succession. The country was a de facto one-party state from 1969 until 1982 when the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) made itself the sole legal party in Kenya. MOI acceded to internal and external pressure for political liberalization in late 1991.

The ethnically fractured opposition failed to dislodge KANU from power in elections in 1992 and 1997, which were marred by violence and fraud, but are viewed as having generally reflected the will of the Kenyan people. President MOI stepped down in December of 2002 following fair and peaceful elections. Mwai KIBAKI, running as the candidate of the multiethnic, united opposition group, the National Rainbow Coalition, defeated KANU candidate Uhuru KENYATTA and assumed the presidency following a campaign centered on an anticorruption platform.

ECONOMY

The Kenyan economy is largely agricultural – 75 per cent of the population work on the land, contributing around 30 per cent of national output. The main cash crops are tea and coffee, although pyrethrum, sisal, sugar and cotton are also important. Kenya is one of the few African countries with a significant dairy industry. Hydroelectric plants meet 80 per cent of the country’s energy requirements. The remainder comes from imported oil, which is also used for one of the country’s principal industries, the manufacture of petroleum-based products such as plastic and chemicals. Kenya, which has one of Africa’s largest manufacturing sectors, also produces cement, paper, drinks, tobacco, textiles, rubber and metal products, ceramics, and electrical and transport equipment. The mining industry, however, is very small. In the service sector, tourism is the largest industry and the country’s principal source of foreign exchange.
Like many African countries, Kenya signed up to an IMF-imposed Structural Adjustment Program in the mid-1990s but it lapsed following policy disagreements between the Fund and the Kenyan government. Further concerns, mainly concerning political reform and widespread corruption, disrupted Kenyan relations with its other major Western aid donors. The IMF and World Bank withdrew support entirely in January 2000. However, following introduction of anti-corruption measures and the privatization of several major state-owned enterprises, the IMF is now expected to resume its support by the end of 2003. In addition, for the first time, foreign investors have been allowed to take controlling stakes in Kenyan companies.
Recent economic performance has been moderate. An estimated two million Kenyans are unemployed and the new government, elected in 2003, plans to create 500,000 new jobs. The UK is Kenya’s major trading partner, followed by Germany, Japan and the United Arab Emirates. In Africa, Uganda is Kenya’s most important export market and source of imports. Along with Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda have explored plans to establish a customs union as the first step towards an east African regional trading bloc (a previous effort collapsed in 1977).

Kenya Travel Tips Overview