Prime Cabinet Secretary and CS for Foreign Affairs Musalia Mudavadi will starting Wednesday, January 24, make an official visit to China.
Mudavadi, leading a delegation of 12, will among other engagements meet his counterpart Wang Yi, who is also a member of the Communist Party of China, and Finance Minister Lan Fo’an.
This will be Mudavadi’s first official visit to China as PCS and Foreign Affairs minister, and a precursor for a state visit by President William Ruto, who at the start of his administration signaled a “Look West” foreign policy orientation.
Mudavadi’s tour comes after President Ruto’s October 15, 2023 visit, when he attended the Third Belt and Road Initiative in Beijing and held bilateral talks with President Xi Jinping.
During that visit, President Ruto and Huawei Technologies chairman Liang Hua witnessed the signing of an MoU to “accelerate the country’s digital transformation”.
President Ruto at the time said the collaboration was essential for achieving Kenya’s digital transformation agenda, a key pillar of his Kenya Kwanza Administration.
“Our partnership with leading Chinese technology corporation, Huawei, will advance our ICT infrastructure and drive digitisation across key sectors like transportation, e-government, education, and health.
“This partnership is vital for Kenya’s Digital Superhighway and the components of the Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda,” the President said.
The 2023 MoU followed others signed by the previous administration, notably the May 2017 Huawei and Kenya Government Cloud Collaboration Agreement.
The deal covered how Huawei would build the infrastructure necessary for the Kenyan government cloud services, migrate government data and applications to the government cloud, and create a platform for state departments to share data and better communicate.
This, in effect, would provide a “one-window style solution” for government services and improve government efficiency.