Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi says Kenya’s reliance on foreign aid is over and the country must fund its own development and find homegrown solutions to its challenges.
Mudavadi said in a recent meeting, the secretary general of the World Trade Organization asked him to inform Kenyans about the global changes on aid.
“It’s now clear that the honeymoon around aid is over and we must shift gear to compete for investment and trade with other nations,” the Prime CS said.
The change in aid policies by the new US administration is a global trend that will force countries including Kenya to look inwards as concerns funding of all programmes.
Mudavadi cited the termination of funding to HIV/Aids programmes. More than 1.3 million Kenyans are living with the disease and the government provided 60 per cent funding of HIV Aids programmes.
The remaining 40 per cent was funded through partnerships. “The donors are now telling us that we must take care of our own sick people by funding the health programmes on our own. It is now upon us to look at how we will now get the 40 per cent internally,” he said.
The Prime CS made the remarks on Monday during the graduation of 1,600 students at Kaiboi National Polytechnic in Nandi county.
Mudavadi said the country must position itself to harness investments and other opportunities globally by having the necessary manpower through training of youth.
“We must scramble for trade and investments but we can not succeed if we do not have the necessary human resource.”
He said Kenya’s elaborate TVET training programme was a reference for benchmarking for other countries.
“With such a training programme, we have an opportunity to be on the forefront in competing globally with skilled labour readily available.”
He however added that the country cannot succeed in competing globally if it does not have a stable government. peace and democratic space.
