- There is barely a corner where there isn’t some governor working furiously to try and restore a once vibrant regional economy that has since collapsed.
- It would seem that once a regional economy has collapsed, finding a new way to bring back its former prosperity is no easy task.
I get the impression that since the election of Donald Trump, there has been far more interest in the American presidency here in Kenya, than even was the case when Barack Obama held that position.
Many Kenyans esteemed Obama – and still do. But it is Trump who truly fascinates them. And for the oddest reason: There is so much about President Trump that is so familiar to us.
If Obama was the first black president of the US, Trump is the first “African president” in that he has so many of the qualities we have long grown used to seeing in African presidents of the 'Big Man' variety: Endless boastful self-promotion; frequent references to his great successes that are invisible to everyone but himself; a preference for relying on his own family rather than experienced technocrats; etc.
And he also has the peculiarly African Big Man’s love for launching grand projects which, even if successfully carried out, would not achieve the stated objective.
Even though our current President, Uhuru Kenyatta, is not really a typical African Big Man, all the same we have the schools laptop project; the Standard Gauge Railway; the Isiolo International Airport; the revival of the coffee-growing subsector; and many others, as examples of such doomed-to-fail projects.
In a similar vein, Americans have the proposed wall along the US-Mexico border; peace initiatives in the Middle East; and the revival of coal mining to boost rural economies in some of the regions where Trump is most popular.
It is this last one – reviving rural economies, which once thrived on coal mining but have since collapsed – that should be of particular interest to us in Kenya.
By some accounts, not only has President Trump failed to do this (revive coal belt) , but – far more worrying than the empty promises of politicians – apparently nobody really seems to know how it can be done.
For at present there is barely a corner of our country where there isn’t some governor working furiously to try and restore a once vibrant regional economy that has since collapsed and left nothing but misery and poverty all around.
Starting with the Coast region, there was once a resilient sugarcane-based regional economy in Kwale county; and cashew nuts once made the farmers of Kilifi county prosper.
Sugarcane growing also once offered a clear path to the middle class in much of rural Western Kenya and the Nyanza lakeside. The region had six sugar factories, the largest of which, Mumias Sugar, was on the Nairobi Stock Exchange. In Bungoma county, there was the huge Pan Paper Mills, which by itself lifted many thousands out of poverty in its heyday.
All these places have since witnessed a near-total collapse of their formerly thriving regional agrarian economies.
And in Central Kenya, coffee is no longer referred to as “black gold”. Those who still grow coffee – however excellent their crop – are in general very poor these days. A long way from the decades when five acres of coffee bushes was all it took to guarantee any family in that region a measure of prosperity.
Even in tourism, which is the only substantive new economic sector that Kenya has been able to develop since Independence, we have seen steep reversals of fortune in some regions.
Most safari tourism now revolves around the preeminent Maasai Mara National Reserve, and the Amboseli, Tsavo and Lake Nakuru national parks.
But some 30 years ago, there was a thriving “Northern Circuit” that encompassed the Meru National Park, the Buffalo Springs National Reserve, the Shaba National Reserve, the Kora National Park, etc.
If you do not hear much of these places anymore, it is because relatively few tourists go there, despite the substantial wildlife populations and tourism potential of these places.
And here we return to Trump and his destitute friends in the coal belt of the US, which he had promised to restore to prosperity.
By some accounts, not only has President Trump failed to do this, but – far more worrying than the empty promises of politicians – apparently nobody really seems to know how it can be done.
The US Federal Government has given all kinds of grants, transfers and subsidies, but all to no effect.
It would seem that once a regional economy has collapsed, finding a new way to bring back its former prosperity is no easy task.