H.E. Mr. Richard Opembe:

I thank the Chairman for inviting me to make a presentation to the honourable members of the joint committee. I propose to give an account of the Irish Aid development programme in Kenya. Aid makes an important but small contribution to a country's sustainable economic and social development. Irish Aid, for several decades, has been a key player in the provision of aid supported by best practices in ensuring the set objectives of funding granted to participants in its programmes in Africa have had a positive impact on the lives of people and the environment. Various Irish non-governmental organisations have established programmes in Kenya through Irish Aid funding. The commitment of the Irish Government through Irish Aid has been instrumental in Kenya over the years in developing or partnering with different non-governmental organisations, NGOs, to develop programmes that can save lives and ameliorate suffering, not just in the short term but also in the long term.

Debilitating diseases such as smallpox, tuberculosis and river blindness have been controlled thanks to targeted development aid efforts. Millions of children in Kenya are alive thanks to the control of measles and other vaccinations. Hundreds of thousands more lives have been saved thanks to international co-operation to fight HIV-AIDS and malaria through Irish Aid funding. In Kenya's case, targeted aid seems to work better in the provision of mosquito nets, vaccines, cash transfers to the poor, education subsidies, education on use of condoms to prevent sexual transmitted diseases, STIs, and urban and rural water provisioning. These seem to achieve their objectives through targeted programmes.

In Kenya, deliberate government policy to direct aid effectively while expanding on other sources of finance has been critical to the positive impact of aid. With even better co-operation between Irish Aid and the government, greater achievements could be realised in chosen areas of assistance.

On future prospects, Irish Aid will continue to achieve its intended purpose. It is important that objectives be narrow and expectations modest. In this context, it is worth noting that the United Nations elected Ireland and Kenya to co-chair the sustainable development goals initiative, which established 17 wide-ranging goals, namely, ending poverty, ending hunger and achieving food security, ensuring healthy lives, ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education, achieving gender equality, ensuring availability and sustainable water and sanitation for all, ensuring access to affordable reliable energy, promoting inclusive sustainable economic growth, building resilient infrastructure, reducing inequality within and among countries, making cities and human settlement inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns, targeting urgent action to combat climate change, conserving and sustainably using oceans, seas and marine resources, protecting and restoring ecosystems, promoting peaceful and inclusive societies and strengthening the means of implementation, as well as revitalising the global partnership for sustainable development.

Ireland's association with Kenya for over 100 years shows how these sustainable development goals have been addressed. Irish Aid's structured engagement with Kenya has helped elevate our country from a least developed economy to a middle-income economy, according to the World Bank's latest estimates of 2015. Ireland played a role in this process, by harnessing the developmental programmes from the grassroots in rural Kenya, assisting in the provision of education, health and environmental improvement and sustenance. In a small but effective way, the benefits of these interventions are felt across Kenya through an association that spans over a century. Through missionary work carried out in diverse sectors of the nation of Kenya, Ireland remains one of the most respected partners in the national well-being of the Kenyan people and continues to play an integral part in the development objectives of the nation. Some of the organisations and individuals funded by Irish Aid include Concern Worldwide, World Vision, Trócaire, Christian Aid, Aidlink, Aidspan, Gorta-SeIf HeIp Africa, Camara, Cara Girls Rescue Centre, Brighter Communities Worldwide, Westport-Aror (Kenya) Partnership and Friends from Ireland.

The re-opening of the Embassy of Ireland and appointment of the ambassador in 2014 greatly boosted co-operation between Kenya and Ireland. This has been done through defined objectives and the participation of Irish Aid in funding networking sessions, trade mission visits, participation in programmes such as the Young Scientists Kenya award scheme, which was launched on 15 July 2017 by the cabinet secretary for education with the Irish ambassador and Professor Tony Scott, founder of Young Science and Technology Exhibition (Ireland) in attendance, and which is funded through Irish Aid. The programme is targeted at the secondary school children to incentivise the children to take up leaning of science in school. Engagement with the Business Ireland Kenya, BIK, network group, has helped to grow opportunities between Ireland and Kenya.

During his recent visit to Kenya, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, stated:

Ireland and Kenya have an excellent bilateral relationship built on strong historical ties and people to people links. This positive legacy means that it is natural and easy for Irish and Kenyan people to do business for the mutual benefit of both countries.

It is clear that there are significant opportunities for Ireland and Kenya to increase trade and strengthen business to business relationships, based on sharing expertise in sectors which are hugely important to both countries; such as agriculture, food, health and education. The Irish Embassy in Nairobi is playing a pivotal role, along with the Business Ireland Kenya network and Enterprise Ireland, to seize on these opportunities.

I will give some examples of these opportunities. In agriculture, Teagasc and the Kenya Agricultural Livestock and Research Organization, KALRO, in 2016 signed a memorandum of understanding to further research into finding the best methodology to improve yields in both animal husbandry and crop production. Several researchers have already been trained at the Teagasc facility. In education, several memorandums of understanding have been signed between Dublin Institute of Technology and Kenyatta University, University College Dublin and Pwani University, Maasai Mara University and the University of Limerick, Riara University and Griffith College, Dublin covering a wide and diverse educational program that will benefit students in Kenya and Ireland on commenced student exchange programmes.

In fisheries, a memorandum of understanding was signed recently between the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries and the Sea-Fisheries Protection Authority and the Marine Institute in Ireland, which will open up the entire programme and will revisit the economic stimulus programme that had been started by the Government of Kenya in both inland and oceanic fisheries research and development of the industry, which has great potential.

Ireland, through Irish Aid, has continually addressed with Kenya the 17 sustainable development goals. The programmes which are being funded adhere to the development goals of provision to Kenyans across the board and in far-flung areas for more than 100 years.

As the World Bank has raised Kenya's status to a middle-income economy, development funding could decline but this should not happen. As a regional power house, Kenya plays an important role in the economic and social growth of her neighbours, which, for the most part, continue to receive aid for humanitarian assistance and environmental management including food security. In respect of organisations such as Irish Aid and the many people of good will who give of themselves in humanitarian and voluntary aid and charity work from Ireland, hope is the best strategy. We hope the programmes which have begun will not dissipate as people of good grow old and weary, funding dies up and children, women and men of advanced years have their dreams shattered. We hope that there will be continued and sustained aid from Irish Aid as Kenya develops.

Kenya continues to make great strides in ensuring the people are the principal beneficiaries of all progress as defined by the Vision 2030 development strategy, the provisions as defined in the 2010 Constitution, the devolved system of governance and the sharing of national resources across all counties. There are 47 counties funded by the national government for grassroots development programmes and projects in the sectors, aimed at growing their potential to improve the people's well-being. It is through this and the recalibration of the economic goals in Kenya, that together with Ireland and Irish Aid, much has been achieved, as I have outlined here and as the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Coveney, noted on his visit to Kenya. While in Nairobi last month, the Minister participated in a panel discussion with approximately 30 representatives of Kenyan and Irish businesses representing the Business Ireland Kenya network to discuss opportunities for increasing trade and co-operation between Ireland and Kenya in the coming years, focusing on the education, health care, agrifood and ICT sectors. Together with the Kenyan cabinet secretary for agriculture, livestock and the marine, he launched a new Ireland-Kenya agrifood strategy, which will be delivered through a Team Ireland approach led by the Irish Embassy in Nairobi in close co-operation with Teagasc and Enterprise Ireland.

The strategy will support the creation of two new trading opportunities for Irish companies interested in the Kenyan market.

The Minister witnessed the signing of two memoranda of understanding between the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries in Kenya and the Sea Fisheries Protection Authority and the Marine Institute in Ireland. These agreements relate to the commitment to joint co-operation between Ireland and Kenya in fisheries training, the development of aquaculture and increasing trade in fish and fishery products. The Minister also announced the awarding of grants to three Irish businesses through a joint initiative between Ireland's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine called the Africa agri-food development programme. This joint initiative aims to build innovative partnership with Kenyan businesses in agrifood that will yield benefits both for businesses and smallholder farmers.

The Minister witnessed the signature of three business-to-business agreements between Irish and Kenyan companies. These are an agreement between International Potato Marketing based in Donegal and Kevian Kenya which provides for the supply of high yielding varieties of certified potato seed from Ireland that will be made available to Kenyan farmers, an agreement between Griffith College and Riara University which formalises plans for student exchanges and an agreement between Irish company Vitro Software, its local partner Savannah Informatics and Nairobi Hospital. The agreement formalises an agreement for Vitro Software to install and provide support services for computer software at Nairobi Hospital. He also presented computer literacy certificates to clients of the International Computer Driving Licence, ICDL, Africa. ICDL is a fully owned subsidiary of European Computer Driving Licence based in Dublin. He opened the new East Africa offices of MagGrow. MagGrow is an Irish company that has pioneered the development of a magnetic spraying system for the horticulture industry which greatly improves spraying efficiency, cuts costs, reduces water usage and improves consumer safety.

This shows that there is much to be done in continued support and funding of growth oriented and self-sustaining projects and programmes with which both Ireland and Kenya can associate for a further 100 years of cordial, respectful, progressive and beneficial engagement. As Kenya moves to become an oil exporting nation, thanks to the exploratory prowess of Tullow Oil, we seek guidance in the extractive and construction sectors in this new industry and the ripple effect that will come from it. There is also the meeting on the sustainable development goals that the United Nations are having our two nations co-facilitate. The trade and development arm of Irish Aid will be of huge benefit in areas of education, factoring in the engineering capacities of Ireland and her large worldwide network of experience. Ireland's capacity in renewable energy, environmental preservation, agricultural technical knowledge, health provision, information and communications technology, financial management, to mention but a few, are areas which will require assistance to grow capacity in Kenya. Kenya looks to maintain the well-established engagement with Irish Aid in to new development for the overall benefit of both the Irish and Kenyan people.

I thank the Chairman and members of the committee.