May. 12, 2017, 12:00 am
President Uhuru Kenyatta has been invited to address the world’s most powerful leaders, the G7 Summit, later this month.
The President is the only African leader who has been invited to the exclusive summit on May 26 and 27 in Taormina, Sicily, in Italy.
The G7 leaders are US President Donald Trump, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President-elect Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe and the UK’s Teresa May.
Attending will be European Union President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.
This summit follows the G7 Summit in Japan in 2016 and the summit hosted by the EU in Brussels in 2014.
It will focus on the global economy, foreign policy, security of citizens and environmental sustainability.
The G7 summit plays an important role in shaping global responses to global challenges, complementing the global economic coordination carried out by the G20.
This is the first time a Kenyan leader has been invited to the gathering and many in the international diplomatic world consider Uhuru’s invitation a “diplomatic coup”.
“This marks the end of the transformation process of President Kenyatta from a pariah, who was wanted by the ICC before the 2013 election, to a respected man to go to in Africa,” Prof Macharia Munene, a lecturer in diplomacy at USIU, said.
Yesterday State House spokesman Manoah Esipisu confirmed the President will attend the Summit.
“The President will honour the invitation because it is a great opportunity to place Kenya on the global stage yet again,” he said.
Since 2013, Uhuru has travelled widely, mainly looking to reposition Kenya as one of the major countries where the world can invest.
“Our engagement with the world is to open doors for Kenyans across the world and also to let the world know we are ready and committed to doing business with them,” the President said on Tuesday during a briefing at State House Nairobi.
Kenya has played host to various regional and world leaders in the last five years. They include former Barack Obama, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, former South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan.
Yesterday, Uhuru met UK Prime Minister Theresa May and held talks at Number 10 Downing Street, London. He sought a pact to guarantee Kenyan exports accessed the UK market on a duty-free quota-free basis after the country exits the European Union. At a landmark meeting at Downing Street, the President spoke strongly about strengthening bilateral relations and closer security cooperation, especially in regard to Somalia.
It was the first meeting between Uhuru and the British PM. The UK is Kenya’s third most important export destination after Uganda and the US.
It is the leadin source market for Kenya’s lifeblood tourism sector.
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