Understanding Kenyan Agency In The Acquisition And Utilization Of Chinese Development Finance In The Transport Infrastructure,2003-2017

In less than two decades,especially in response to China's renewed engagement in Africa at the dawn of twenty-first century,a growing body of literature on“China-Africa relations"has emerged.A majority of scholars,however,have focused their attention on China as the driver of engagement.African side of the engagement has been under-researched and under-theorized.In a bid to correct this deficit,there is a burgeoning literature on African agency within China-Africa relations.However,this literature suffers from inadequacy in conceptualizing the terms agency and African agency and what essentially structures African political elites in the course of their interaction with their Chinese counterparts.Where some attempts have been made,the authors have failed to distinguish between state-enabled agency and non-state agency.Moreover,these studies have been predominantly conducted in resource-rich countries,thus ignoring relatively resource-scarce countries like Kenya.This study seeks to fill this knowledge gap.The study is motivated by the desire to understand the role of Kenyan political elites in acquiring and utilizing Chinese development finance in the transport infrastructure.China's involvement in Kenya's infrastructure is clustered around three sets of political elites(planners,loan negotiators and implementers)apparently with diverge visions.Whereas Kenya's overriding goal is to maximize her national interests,how then does this unique combination of visions safeguard these interests?Using a longitudinal case study of Kenya's acquisition and utilization of Chinese development finance in the transport infrastructure(in roads and railway sub-sector)from 2003 to 2017,and based on interviews conducted from more than 50 political elites and supplemented with secondary data,the study finds that the extent to which Kenyan political elites contributed to safeguarding the country's national interests during the acquisition and utilization of Chinese development finance varied across time and space.In 2003,in the context where China was gradually increasing presence in Africa's infrastructure development,in quest for diversification of external sources of finances it made strategic sense for Kenyan planners to approach China.However,as China intensified her engagement in Kenya's transport infrastructure,the ability of planners to define policy agenda in some sub-sectors was constrained.Despite the apparent attractiveness of Chinese development finance,due to varying perceptions of material factors defining China-Kenya relations,the Kenyan government obtained "favourable" loan agreements for some infrastructure projects and not in other cases.Empirical evidence suggests that Kenyan implementers gradually ensured that some materials and equipment used in Chinese funded projects were sourced locally,same as the sourcing of labour and knowledge sharing.These findings make significant contribution to the burgeoning literature on African agency within China-Africa relations by demonstrating that the concept of African agency is context dependent The findings have also implications for planners and implementers both in Kenya and China.