Development assistance in Kenya: an evaluation of German donor aid in post independent Kenya, 1963-2003

Abstract

This study traces, analyses and accounts for German and Kenyan development bilateralism from 1963 to 2003. It highlights the origins, characteristics and development of Germany's development assistance programme to Kenya. It demonstrates the evolution of the major features of the German foreign policy and donor assistance to Kenya. Moreover, it seeks to analyse the trends in the German-Kenya bilateral relations over the period under study and to evaluate and account for the impact of German development assistance on Kenya's development. These highlights are made against a background of the Cold War politics and contexts in which Kenya-German bilateral relations were developed and thrived. The study seeks to identify the various capitalist beliefs and practices that inform the German economic policy towards Kenya and analyses the nature of its development assistance programme. The significance of the study is embedded in the fact that Germany is one of the major industrial countries of the world today, the third largest economy in the world after America and Japan, whose bilateral relations call for historical analysis. An account of Germany‘s major transformations is made within the Habermarsian theory as well as the dependency theory. These enable us to account for how that nation which had experienced great political and economic turmoil in the first half of the twentieth century became so successful in its socio-economic reconstruction. These processes are posed within the communicative action theory as well as the purposive dialogue theory of Habermas in an integrated way with the dependency perspectives. This work is, therefore, largely a historiographical and documentary review based study in its research design. The various literature, documents and harnessed oral information are subjected to historical analysis, interpretation as well as historical explanation within the Habermasian communicative action and purposive dialogue theories as well as the dependency conceptual framework. It has been demonstrated that in order to solve problems of diplomacy and national interest, Germany operationalized her foreign aid policy and donor assistance within official policy frameworks identified as Hallstein, economic self-interest and Friedenpolitik doctrines and other reports that spelled out official aid policies and practices for the country. The study has demonstrated how these policy frameworks have determined German development aid policy over the years. Finally, the study highlights the Cold War ideological setting in which KenyaGerman bilateral relations emerged and blossomed. The study is based on the primary assumption that Kenya's development strategy of partnering with Germany was a product of the Cold War context of world politics. It also assumes that Germany‘s economic development has enhanced its capacity as a development assistance donor to Kenya and that Germany's donor assistance programme with Kenya began at independence in 1963, and was part of Germany's general foreign aid policy to Africa. Moreover, it argues that Germany's foreign aid policy enhanced Kenya's development in the modernization and neo-classical sense while in our view it has entangled Kenya further in a dependency relationship. An interdependence relationship has also been fostered between the two nations.