Kenya must shift from aid dependency to attracting trade and investment - Mudavadi

Kenya should quickly shift gear from aid dependency to laying the foundation for attracting trade and investment, Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi has said.

Speaking in Geneva, Switzerland, Mudavadi stated that Kenya must adopt and actualize immediate, radical and aggressive policy shifts strategically focusing on how to generate adequate resources to fund its critical programs.

Further, he noted that the era of aid dependency has come to an end and that Kenya and Africa should now be thinking of quick and sustainable alternative ways to support their economies.

“The geopolitics and shifting global dynamics being witnessed is a clear indicator that we should be looking at ways of being self-reliant moving into the future. We cannot afford to prevaricate. Other countries are making their moves we must make ours now.” he said.

The Foreign and Diaspora Cabinet Secretary said this as he concluded his official visit in Geneva, stating that Kenya’s strategic position as a regional economic and financial hub puts it in an advantageous position to advance that course.

“Parliament must be quick in decision making on this agenda, the county governments and the executive must also be quick and we must embrace a stronger partnership with the private sector, across board whether in agricultural sector, manufacturing, industry, finance, technology and many other sectors,” said Mudavadi.

He added that the current situation calls for critical collaboration, as the world scrambles for the fewer available investment opportunities and there is no room for making mistakes.

Mudavadi also cautioned that countries that have been relying on foreign aid, including donor funding, must now be wary of the moves being taken by certain countries and capitals, particularly Washington, and make a solid foundation for their future.

“In the colonial days they used to say scramble for Africa, where everybody wanted a piece of Africa but now it is our turn as Africa to scramble for our investments,” said Mudavadi.

Mudavadi, who held several bilateral and multilateral engagements while in Geneva, particularly pointed out his meeting with the Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, Peter Sands, as an eye-opener for the African continent and Kenya.

He echoed Sands’ message that the global health fund is under threat in terms of resource mobilization capacity, painting a grim picture of what awaits nations that have largely depended on aid to support their health programs.

Mudavadi noted that the global fund raised about USD18 billion in the previous cycle, and according to Sands, they hoped to maintain that target. However, the changing global dynamics have forced major contributors like Washington, which was injecting up to a third of the required resources, to pull out.

“It is essential that we adjust not only as a country but as Africa and figure out how we are going to deal with the financing gap that will arise if resources are not going to be flowing in the health sector,” he said.

“This brings to question the whole debate we have been having on Universal Health Care, which has been taken as a joke with some looking at it as a punitive engagement between the government and the citizens, but here is a situation whereby the government of Kenya is going to be vindicated.”

Additionally, Mudavadi explained and urged Kenyans to support the government’s programs and policies, as the message coming from the international arena is clear that countries must now take care of their own health programs.

He pointed out that the health sector is critical to Kenya, emphasizing that the programs will no longer be underwritten by donors or partners. Therefore, Kenyans must prepare to adopt ways that will be helpful moving into the future.

“That which was being seen as maybe not being popular must now be taken more seriously because it was not about being popular it was about safeguarding the health of the Kenyan people,” said the Prime CS.

“The Universal Health Care must now shift from the angle at which it was being seen to now be seen as a serious lifesaving program for the people of Kenya.”

Mudavadi however, called for a clean-up of some areas within the implementation framework of the roll-out of the Universal Health Care program.

He stated that serious financial adjustments must be made, as bodies like the World Health Organization are uncertain about the sustainability of their funding, and others like USAID have been wound up.

“There are almost 1.3 million Kenyans who get support from partners on matters of health particularly in areas like HIV and access to ARVs but now these are some of the areas that have been targeted in this financial adjustment that is taking place globally,” Mudavadi said.

“Kenya at least funds 40% of its own resources and 60% has been funded by the partners but now you can imagine if there is that guillotine that we are talking about then what happens with these Kenyans who need that assistance and it is not there.”