Africa must work on building its global capacity and partnerships that will create opportunities for trade, investment, and domestic resource generation that spur economic growth.

Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi has said the era of depending on foreign aid is gone and African nations must become more self-sufficient.

Mudavadi noted that the evolving global geo-political, geo-economical and geo-technological dynamics show a clear move away from aid dependency.

“It is upon us individually and collectively as a continent, to take more seriously any opportunities of consolidating trade and other investment arrangements with our trade partners.” he said.

He has urged African leaders to make “immediate, radical, and aggressive policy changes” to generate resources for critical programs, or risk being left behind.

“This is critical for Kenya and critical for Africa, bearing in mind that we are seeing a lot of volatility in the trading arena. Africa requires predictable, reliable and consistent trade arrangements with its partners.” noted Mudavadi.

Mudavadi was speaking when he graced the the 76th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China at the Chinese embassy in Nairobi.

He noted that partners like China are important players in global affairs, China being the second largest global economy.

He acknowledged the success stories from China and other developed nations to be an eye opener for Kenya and Africa to leverage on opportunities presented by these trade partners.

“Through the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) arrangement, great strides have been made, spanning aspects of infrastructure, broad governance issues, and technological transfer between China and the African continent. This relationship has definitely yielded positive results.” said Mudavadi.

Adding that “China is now Africa’s largest bilateral development partner, providing African countries with necessary resources for development of priority sectors including infrastructure, agriculture, health, manufacturing, mining, energy, housing, among others. Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) has increased significantly over the last two decades, supporting Private Public Partnerships (PPPs) in these key sectors. This demonstrates the critical role of FOCAC in advancing Africa-China partnership for Africa’s development.”

Mudavadi, also the Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Cabinet Secretary reveled that owing to President William Ruto’s State visit to China earlier this year, Kenya is making strides in advancing 21 key bilateral agreements reached on that occasion.

He noted that Kenya is pursuing critical aspects among them the extension of the Standard Gauge Railway, from Naivasha to Kisumu and Malaba border and the dualling of the Rironi-Mau Summit to Malaba road, whose completion will open up and boost Kenya’s trade making it critical regional business and investment hub.

“Our target is to enhance the efficiency of trade between us, our neighbour Uganda and open up opportunities within the great lakes region and beyond.” he said.

“As of today, something important is going on in China. Kenya has a delegation which is in deep negotiation, so that within the framework arrangement of FOCAC, and the pronouncement about China offering Africa the Free Preferential Trade Agreement for products in Africa, Kenya is defending its portion of arrangement with the Chinese government, and we hope that in a few weeks’ time, we shall be able to report progress, indicating that we have struck a deal within the free preferential trade agreement framework.” revealed the Prime CS.

Mudavadi also noted that within the emerging global dynamics in different areas, the place for multilateralism is becoming even more important and it should not be weakened or undermined.

He noted that with China’s position on multilateralism and being a dependable partner and strong voice in advancing the principles of the Global South, Kenya stands ready to further deepen its ties and work with China in advancing and accelerating a “Shared Future” of strategic significance in promoting multilateralism, and enhancing cooperation for the mutual benefit of the citizens of these two countries.
“A strong message that will continue to send the signal that the absence of multilateralism is dangerous for humanity, is extremely essential at this point at time. We will not be able to deal with the conflicts that we see, if we weaken and undermine multilateralism. The position taken to consolidate multilateralism is a shared position.” he emphasized.