Infrastructure is crucially important to foster countries’ economic development and prosperity. Investments in infrastructure contribute to higher productivity and growth, facilitate trade and connectivity, and promote economic inclusion.

Infrastructure ensures easy movement of goods and raw materials, thereby, reducing inefficiencies and leading to efficient utilisation of scarce resources and eliminating wastages.

On the social development front, infrastructure connects communities and countries with market, health and education facilities, gives access to clean water, sanitation and power, improves livelihoods and generates employment, creating the conditions for lasting peace.

When President Uhuru Kenyatta took over the reins of power in 2013, he was acutely aware of the crucial role infrastructure would play in the country’s growth trajectory and in cementing his legacy. His Big 4 Agenda development blueprint comprising food security; affordable housing; manufacturing and Universal Health Care (UHC) could not be achieved without adequate investment in infrastructure.

The transport sector, no doubt, has taken a huge chunk of investment, notably in the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), a modern, efficient transport system that has enabled safe, comfortable travel for individuals and freight across the country and region at lower costs. Afristar, the SSGR operator, has ensured reliable and high capacity transport, reduced freight tariff, and de-congested roads leading to savings in road maintenance, de-congested port, skills transfer and an increase in employment opportunities directly and indirectly through industries that are coming up along the railway line development.

One of the key infrastructure landmarks benefitting from the SGR is the Port of Mombasa, where the construction of a second container terminal has seen the container throughput of the port rise from 894,000 to 1.1 million Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs). This makes it the fifth busiest port in Africa. Given that the port facilitates over 90 per cent of our international sea trade, the turnaround time for cargo to leave the port and reach its destination must be reduced. In this respect, the expansion of the port would not have been possible without the SGR, whose regulator Kenya Railways Corporation, has stepped up measures that have greatly de-congested the port.

Also worth noting is an investment in the road network in the country, which has been scaled up to build more highways, and urban roads and also to extend rural roads to where they are needed to open up areas to economic activity, trade and commerce. The highlight though is the Nairobi Express Way, which is currently nearing completion. It is part of the northern corridor that provides passage to 85 per cent of the cargo destined for neighbouring landlocked countries, such as Uganda, Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan.

Due to the rapidly changing global technological development, the government has laid down over 6000 kilometres of the National Fibre Optic Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI) across all 47 counties to provide a robust infrastructure to citizens.

The government has also initiated the Presidential Digital Talent Program, which provides one year of paid internship opportunities to ICT and engineering graduates as a move to develop skilled human capital to support ICT innovation capacity.

It is evident from the foregoing that the role of infrastructure in socio-economic development cannot be overstated. Due to the huge investments in the infrastructure projects by President Kenyatta’s government, Kenya’s economy from 2015 to 2019 achieved broad-based growth averaging 4.7 per cent a year, significantly reducing poverty. Since 2014, Kenya has been ranked as a lower middle-income country because its per capita GDP crossed a World Bank threshold. With a GDP of $95 billion, Kenya has successfully established a diverse and dynamic economy.

One can only hope that President Kenyatta’s successor will carry on with his legacy projects to spur more economic growth in the country.

The author is the Managing Director, Kenya Railways Corporation