Kenya is already the biggest beneficiary of French oversees development assistance and according to State House Spokesperson Manoah Esipisu, the French government has committed Sh88.5 billion to Kenya through the Africa Development Bank; having committed Sh5 billion to the upgrading of slums through the French Development Agency/PSCU
Presidents Kenyatta and Hollande were scheduled to meet on Monday afternoon following the former’s arrival in Paris on Sunday evening.
Kenya is already the biggest beneficiary of French oversees development assistance and according to State House Spokesperson Manoah Esipisu, the French government has committed Sh88.5 billion to Kenya through the Africa Development Bank; having committed Sh5 billion to the upgrading of slums through the French Development Agency.
“We consider France as a partner not a donor because the work we have been doing together is not the kind that happens when it is a donor-recipient relationship. It is a relationship that France would have even with the developed world with joint ventures where resources coming into the country are investments not aid,” Mohamed said on Monday.
Kenya, she said, was interested in the growth of that partnership and to seeing more of the French in Kenyan investment circles and as visitors to the country.
In that effort, President Kenyatta was also scheduled to meet the Secretary General of the Rungis International Market – the largest wholesale food market in the world – and Pierre Gattaz, the President of MEDEF – an 800,000 member-strong network of French entrepreneurs.
On Monday morning he visited the French Intelligence Services after inspecting a Guard of Honour at the Cour des Dome Invalides at a ceremony at which the French government was represented by French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.
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President Kenyatta was accompanied to the French Intelligence Services headquarters by the Director of the Kenyan National Counter Terrorism Centre Director Ambassador Martin Kimani who told Capital FM News that the global nature of terrorism necessitated timely intelligence sharing across borders.
A hundred and thirty people died in Paris in November last year in co-ordinated terror attacks on a stadium, theatre, restaurants and bars just months before the more recent attacks on Brussels.
