Africa Notes: Kenya: Challenges and Prospects - October 2003

In terms of U.S. interests, Kenya is arguably the most important country in East Africa. However, over much of the last decade and a half, the country has not received a great deal of serious or sustained attention from senior U.S. policymakers. Largely because of endemic corruption, serious human rights violations, and a difficult transition to democratic rule in 1992, Kenya was treated very warily by U.S. officials— it was seen as a country to be quietly recognized and courted to achieve specific U.S. foreign policy objectives, but not a country to be fully embraced and brought into the United States’ inner circle of new African partners.