Written by Khalil Zlaoui From November 28th to December 2nd, I travelled to Kenya with Matt Bull and joined Serah Njoroge for a PPIAF mission.
My first impression of Nairobi was a good one; I was actually amazed by the city. I noticed that business was thriving in Kenya. Many foreign companies are settled in Nairobi, especially British companies. Traffic is very painful, however, causing people to spend time stuck in traffic rather than spending it at work, which has a serious impact on productiveness and growth. Another thing that struck me was the seriousness of security in the city. There are fences everywhere, which I am definitely not used to. In fact, getting in a hotel is more difficult than passing security at the airport. This was also the case at the British embassy where we met our DFID colleagues. They had “bomb shelters” and a scary alarm system. In a way it is justified, but it’s a vicious cycle, and I’m sure there are other ways to protect people than putting fences everywhere.
Kenya is expecting many PPP projects to be implemented. The country is trying to push for energy projects (including geothermal) but still has some challenges (grid power is intermittent and results in power outages). The transport sector has been very challenging, and a recent Nairobi toll road project did not go through. Many regional transport projects are under discussion, including one with South Sudan. Kenya Airports Authority is acquiring debt to finance its projects and is planning to build a new unit at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. PPIAF can support many projects but work has to be done to identify a pipeline of priority projects. The conference in Nairobi provided a state of the PPP market in Africa, and I realized after attending it the importance of such events in Africa as:
In conclusion, there still is a huge need for capacity building in Africa’s public sector which PPIAF can support. In Kenya, PPIAF has already provided support in almost all the sectors but the country is still facing challenges which PPIAF can help to overcome. We hope to be able to target our support once a pipeline of priority projects is identified. PPIAF will be following up with the Kenya PPP unit, as well as with DFID and our regional integration colleagues from TradeMark and the IFC, to identify projects that need support and to increase the pipeline in the region. |
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We first met with our colleagues from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the UK Department for International Development (DFID), TradeMark East Africa, Kenya Airports Authority, and the public-private partnership (PPP) Unit in Nairobi. We then attended the third edition of the African PPP conference in Nairobi, which focused on infrastructure investment and PPPs. Key public and private sector representatives gave presentations, starting with PPPs and the importance of a conductive environment for private investment, which was followed by country specific examples. The last session focused on the energy and water sectors in Kenya. Serah Njoroge, the South and East Africa Regional Coordinator for PPIAF, gave a presentation on investment trends in the water sector in Africa, as well as a briefing on PPIAF’s support to Kenya's water sector.
As we were driving towards the hotel Martin, the jimcab driver, mentioned the Kibera slum, the second largest urban slum in Africa. He took us to a place where we could see the slum from a hill. It’s huge. Martin said “some of them own houses but they prefer to rent them to get more money”. He said the conditions were very bad, and that “people do not have space for life here”.
We met with many people who did not know about the program, as well as clients that PPIAF had supported, including the PPP unit in Morocco. It was very interesting to speak with both potential clients and actual ones to see what PPIAF’s work has resulted in, and to potentially discuss follow-up activities with them directly.