When Kenya embarked on its national infrastructure development agenda back in the early 2000s, policymakers didn’t have a lot of options when it came to financing. Traditional lenders weren’t interested and the cost of borrowing from banks was too expensive.
Enter the Chinese, who United States International University-Africa professor Elijah Munyi told a national radio audience on Spice FM’s popular morning show “The Situation Room” had the capital and, more importantly, the risk appetite to finance the country’s railways, ports, and roads.