Margaret Thatcher's Speech to Kenya

It is no secret that there is particular regard in Britain for Kenya. Its beauty is a byword with us. We respect your remarkable history. In Kenya, one finds the longest and most complete record of Man's cultural development of any country in the world, with the earliest remains dating back some twenty million years. 

But we have, of course, been closely involved with your more recent history and we are delighted that we still have today such very extensive links with Kenya through investment, through trade and through the growing numbers of our people who come to visit Kenya on holiday.

Mr President, we admire what we see: your country's peace and stability; policies which recognise the worth of individual effort and personal endeavour bodied in the concept of “Harambee” — self-help; an economy in which private ownership and private industry have been encouraged; above all, a country which has enjoyed strong and decisive leadership within a constitutional framework. This has not only brought you enviable stability at home. It has ensured that Kenya's voice is heard with respect in Africa and in the world.

Your own contribution to Kenya's success, Mr President, has been remarkable. Your leadership has ensured that, where others have faltered, Kenya has continued to grow stronger and more prosperous. I recall that when you took over from your distinguished predecessor, you emphasised that you would continue the same policies and used the word “nyayo” meaning “footprints”, to express this. As we drove in from the airport, I heard the crowd shout “nyayo, nyayo!” That means, I believe, Sir, that you have made your own footprints in the sands of time.

Mr President, you have a saying here: “Kusikia si kuona” - “to hear is not to see". I have heard much of Kenya; now I have come to see and to learn. I felt that I should come and see for myself more of the tremendous efforts at economic development that are going on in Kenya and in Africa. Your invitation, Mr President, provided the opportunity.

Today, I have been able to visit some impressive projects in the Rift Valley Province and tomorrow we shall go to Western Kenya, but what I have already seen has underlined two very important lessons!

First, the crucial importance of a strong and sound agriculture. Your policies of help to the small independent farmer have been strikingly successful. They have enabled you to develop and diversify your exports and you have been able not only to feed the Kenyan people, even during the 1984 drought, but to provide the food needed to feed others less skillful and less fortunate than yourselves. 

Kenya's example should encourage Europe, North America and Japan to reduce the excessive subsidies which we give to our own agriculture which lead to unwanted surpluses. If we could do that, then Kenya's success story could be strengthened and repeated more widely in Africa.

The second lesson has been the vital importance of education. I have seen a very successful secondary school today and tomorrow we shall be visiting Moi University, of which I have heard so much. Education is vital to the hopes and prospects of the young people in both countries. We, in Britain, are embarking on the most far-reaching reform of our education system since the Second World War. Here, in Kenya, you are carrying through a remarkable programme of educational development, which has our full support.

I hope that my visit will draw Britain and Kenya still closer together and I hope, too, that it will help bring nearer the vision that we both have for Africa — a vision of a continent at peace, its peoples enjoying democracy and basic human rights, their economic development following the example, which Kenya has established, of giving the individual responsibility and the help he needs to raise his own standard of living, that of his family and that of his country as a whole.

I would ask all our guests to drink a toast to that vision: to the success of Kenya, the continuance of the long-standing friendship between Britain and Kenya and to the continued leadership of President Moi. 

Will you rise and drink a toast with me to the President of the Republic of Kenya and to the vision of Africa.