Cruising in Kenya

Background

Founding president and liberation struggle icon Jomo KENYATTA led Kenya from independence in 1963 until his death in 1978, when President Daniel Toroitich arap MOI took power in a constitutional succession. The country was a de facto one-party state from 1969 until 1982 when the ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) made itself the sole legal party in Kenya.

MOI acceded to internal and external pressure for political liberalization in late 1991. The ethnically fractured opposition failed to dislodge KANU from power in elections in 1992 and 1997, which were marred by violence and fraud, but were viewed as having generally reflected the will of the Kenyan people. President MOI stepped down in December 2002 following fair and peaceful elections.

Mwai KIBAKI, running as the candidate of the multiethnic, united opposition group, the National Rainbow Coalition, defeated KANU candidate Uhuru KENYATTA and assumed the presidency following a campaign centered on an anticorruption platform.

Geography

Location: Eastern Africa, bordering the Indian Ocean, between Somalia and Tanzania
Geographic coordinates: 1 00 N, 38 00 E
Map references: Africa
Area: total: 582,650 sq km
Land: 569,250 sq km
Water: 13,400 sq km
Land boundaries: total: 3,477 km
Border countries: Ethiopia 861 km, Somalia 682 km, Sudan 232 km, Tanzania 769 km, Uganda 933 km

Coastline

536 km

Maritime claims

Territorial sea: 12 nm
Exclusive economic zone: 200 nm
Continental shelf: 200 m depth or to the depth of exploitation

Climate

Varies from tropical along coast to arid in interior

Terrain

Low plains rise to central highlands bisected by Great Rift Valley; fertile plateau in west

Elevation extremes

Lowest point: Indian Ocean 0 m
Highest point: Mount Kenya 5,199 m

Economy

The regional hub for trade and finance in East Africa, Kenya has been hampered by corruption and by reliance upon several primary goods whose prices have remained low. In 1997, the IMF suspended Kenya's Enhanced Structural Adjustment Program due to the government's failure to maintain reforms and curb corruption. A severe drought from 1999 to 2000 compounded Kenya's problems, causing water and energy rationing and reducing agricultural output.

As a result, GDP contracted by 0.2% in 2000. The IMF, which had resumed loans in 2000 to help Kenya through the drought, again halted lending in 2001 when the government failed to institute several anticorruption measures. Despite the return of strong rains in 2001, weak commodity prices, endemic corruption, and low investment limited Kenya's economic growth to 1.2%. Growth lagged at 1.1% in 2002 because of erratic rains, low investor confidence, meager donor support, and political infighting up to the elections.

In the key December 2002 elections, Daniel Arap MOI's 24-year-old reign ended, and a new opposition government took on the formidable economic problems facing the nation. In 2003, progress was made in rooting out corruption and encouraging donor support. GDP grew more than 5% in 2005.

Transportation

Airports: 224 (2005)
Airports - with paved runways: total: 15
Airports - with unpaved runways: total: 209
Pipelines: refined products 752 km (2004)
Railways: total: 2,778 km
narrow gauge: 2,778 km 1.000-m gauge (2004)
Roadways: total: 63,942 km

Waterways

Part of Lake Victoria system is within boundaries of Kenya (2003

Merchant marine

Total: 3 ships (1000 GRT or over) 6,049 GRT/7,082 DWT
By type: cargo 2, petroleum tanker 1
Registered in other countries: 6 (The Bahamas 1, Comoros 1, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 3, unknown 1) (2005)

Sailing Specifics: Ports and terminals

Mombasa

Disputes

Kenya served as an important mediator in brokering Sudan's north-south separation in February 2005; Kenya provides shelter to approximately a quarter of a million refugees including Ugandans who flee across the border periodically to seek protection from Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) rebels; the Kenya-Somalia border is open to pastoralists and is susceptible to cross-border clan insurgencies; Kenya's administrative limits extend beyond the treaty border into the Sudan, creating the Ilemi Triangle.

Other Sailing Destinations in the Region

Bahrain - Christmas Islands - Cocos Keeling - Comoros - Djibouti - Eritrea - India - Jordan - Kenya - Kuwait - Madagascar - Maldives - Mauritius - Mayotte - Mozambique - Oman - Pakistan - Qatar - Reunion Island - Saudi Arabia - Seychelles - Somalia - Sri Lanka - Sudan - Tanzania - United Arab Emirates - Yemen

Further Reading

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