Contemporary Issues in Kenya & the African Union

ACIR is honored to host Ambassador Robinson Njeru Githae of Kenya to Atlanta. Ambassador Githae will speak on the topic, “Contemporary Issues in Kenya and the African Union.”

Kenya is geo-located in a most challenging area of Eastern Africa, with neighbors that have been engaged in prolonged civil wars, or as repositories for terrorists who plague that region. In spite of that challenge, Kenya has been a long-standing ally of the United States and has sought to maintain economic progress through continued commercial relations with our nation. It has fully cooperated with the United States in coordinated strategic defense policies to engage in anti-terrorist strikes against Al Shabab and al-Qaeda groups in neighboring states.

Within the last year, Kenya has agreed to a $900 Million trade agreement with the United States that will serve to bolster the American and Kenyan economies, and bring this critically important East African nation even closer to the American political-economic orbit.

The maritime area off the long Kenyan coast, with American military bases thus situated, becomes even more strategically important due to what may be a growing Cold War with a rising power in Asia, and its growing interest in East Africa. Kenya has become more important to the United States than ever before.