Nairobi, Feb. 16 -- Last week's signing of Sh350 billion deals for development projects between Kenya and Japan is a continuation of a genuine partnership that goes back to the days of President Jomo Kenyatta. I say genuine because it was always development co-operation based on mutual respect and understanding with no geopolitical strings attached. Japan has indeed walked with Kenya through good and challenging times.

Japanese Infrastructure projects have been mostly funded on easy concessionary terms, and corruption has hardly ever featured in them. Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is a household name in nearly all aspects of socioeconomic (education, agriculture, health ) development, mostly in the form of bilateral gr...