Category: Business Daily

Maisie is a disabled cat. She cannot move, eat, or relieve herself without help. Her life runs on a strict routine, with her feeding, bathroom breaks, and care scheduled down to the minute. So what happens when her purr-ent needs to travel and cannot take her along?

The High Court has dismissed a legal challenge seeking to halt public participation sessions on a proposed policy by the National Treasury, which is aimed at standardising the valuation of public assets.

The Singapore debate featured in many of my holiday conversations. Some folks are cautiously optimistic. Others worry about hurdles that could keep us from this vision.

Fines collected from road traffic offences rose sharply by 64 percent in 2024, underscoring intensified enforcement amid broader efforts to improve safety on Kenyan roads, plug revenue leakages, and tighten discipline in the transport sector.

Kenya is charting an ambitious path to integrate traditional medicine into mainstream healthcare by 2028, a move that would create a collaborative system in which conventional doctors and traditional healers work side by side within the same health facilities.

The American investors behind the Nairobi-Mombasa Expressway have been sent back to the drawing board, where they are now expected to prepare a fresh Project Development Report (PDR) to demonstrate the bankability of the Sh468 billion public-private partnership (PPP) project.

Many people around the world associate the United Kingdom (UK) with football culture, packed stadiums, roaring fans and the glamour of the Premier League. But for many Kenyans who move to the UK, especially to London, life revolves less around sport and more around work, study and reinvention.

Shortage of medical workers, inadequate healthcare infrastructure, and rising chronic diseases are fueling a boom in Kenya’s HealthTech sector, transforming crisis into opportunity through digital innovation.

Kenya is set to map new underground water reserves in Nairobi amid pressure on existing supplies for millions of city residents and businesses.

At first glance, US military strikes on Venezuela appear distant, just another episode in a long history of Washington’s confrontations with leftist governments in Latin America.

However, for Kenya, the significance of such a move would lie not in Venezuela itself, but in what it reveals about the global order we now inhabit. In an era of economic fragility, geopolitical shocks increasingly travel through markets faster than diplomacy, and Kenya sits squarely in their path.

Venezuela is a symbol of how energy, sanctions, and power politics intersect. Any US strike would almost certainly be accompanied by tighter sanctions, disruptions to shipping, and heightened uncertainty across global energy markets.

Crucially, oil prices respond less to supply shortages than to perceived risk. Even limited military action would inject volatility into markets already jittery from wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

For Kenya, this is not an abstract concern. As a net oil importer, the country absorbs global price shocks immediately. Fuel is a foundational input across the economy.

Higher oil prices translate into higher transport costs, more expensive food distribution, rising manufacturing expenses, and upward pressure on inflation. This would arrive at a moment when Kenyan households are strained and politically sensitive to cost-of-living increases.

However, the deeper risk lies beyond inflation. Energy shocks widen Kenya’s current account deficit, placing renewed pressure on the shilling. Currency depreciation then feeds back into inflation, particularly for imported essentials.

The Central Bank of Kenya would find itself constrained, forced to balance price stability against growth in an economy already slowed by high interest rates and fiscal tightening. External shocks leave little room for domestic policy creativity.

Yet focusing only on oil prices misses the larger story. A US strike on Venezuela would signal the return of a more overtly unilateral and coercive American foreign policy.

Under such conditions, global finance tends to retreat into caution. Investors seek safety, liquidity tightens, and capital becomes more selective. Frontier markets like Kenya, regardless of their individual fundamentals, are often among the first to feel the effects.

This matters because Kenya remains deeply embedded in global capital markets. Higher geopolitical risk translates into higher borrowing costs, reduced access to concessional financing, and heightened sensitivity to credit rating downgrades.

At a time when Kenya is navigating debt restructuring pressures and International Monetary Fund terms, a shift in global risk sentiment could complicate fiscal planning and delay economic recovery.

Repeated shocks of this nature contribute to the fragmentation of the global economic system. Energy markets become politicised, trade routes securitised, and financial flows increasingly shaped by geopolitical allegiance rather than efficiency.

For countries such as Kenya, this erosion of predictability is dangerous. Development planning assumes a degree of global stability that no longer exists.

This is where foreign policy becomes inseparable from economic strategy. Kenya has traditionally sought to balance relationships across global powers, positioning itself as a pragmatic, non-aligned partner. But in a world defined by sanctions regimes, strategic rivalry, and military brinkmanship, neutrality becomes harder to sustain.

External shocks expose how dependent Kenya remains on systems it does not control like global energy markets, dollar-denominated finance, and geopolitical decisions made elsewhere.

There is also a longer-term lesson. If global volatility becomes the norm, Kenya’s vulnerability is structural, not episodic. Energy dependence, a narrow export base, and reliance on external financing amplify the impact of distant conflicts. Diversification of energy sources, trade partnerships, and financing mechanisms is a defensive necessity.

The irony is that while Kenya has made progress in renewable energy generation, it remains exposed through transport fuels and global pricing mechanisms.

Until this dependence is reduced, every geopolitical shock, from Caracas to the Persian Gulf, will continue to reverberate through Kenyan households and businesses.

Read: Why targeting leaders risks global stability

US strikes on Venezuela may or may not occur. But the signal they send is unmistakable: the global economy is entering a phase where power politics increasingly override multilateral restraint.

For Kenya, the challenge is not predicting the next conflict, but preparing for a world where such shocks are frequent and unavoidable.

In that world, foreign policy is no longer a distant elite conversation. It is embedded in fuel prices, inflation, debt sustainability, and economic sovereignty.

What happens in Caracas will not stay in Caracas. It will arrive quietly, through markets, currencies, and the cost of living, reminding Kenyans that in a fractured global order, distance offers little protection.