Abiy calls for deeper Kenya-Ethiopia trade partnership at Eldoret ceremony

The Ethiopian prime minister used Kenya’s national holiday to make the case for economic integration, citing clean energy, mobile money and cross-border commerce as the pillars of a shared future

By James Mwangi

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed called yesterday for a stronger economic partnership between Ethiopia and Kenya, telling thousands gathered at Kipchoge Keino Stadium in Eldoret that trade and business cooperation offered both nations the clearest path to shared prosperity.

Abiy’s appearance at Kenya’s 63rd Mashujaa Day celebrations as a guest of President William Ruto was itself a diplomatic statement — a visible affirmation of the bilateral relationship at a moment when East Africa’s regional architecture is being tested by conflict, economic pressure and shifting political alignments. That the leader of Africa’s second most populous nation chose to frame his address around commerce rather than security or politics was deliberate, and the message landed with the weight of a leader who understands that durable relationships between neighbours are built in markets, not only in meeting rooms.

He reached for an Ethiopian concept to make his central argument. “We rise as rivals. We build as partners,” Abiy told the stadium. “In Ethiopia, we call this spirit Madama. It means synergy.” The word was new to most in the audience, but its meaning was unmistakable — a philosophy of mutual reinforcement over zero-sum competition, applied to two countries that share a long border, a shared economic corridor and a growing interdependence that both governments have reason to deepen.

Abiy pointed to the energy sector as the most tangible expression of that synergy already in operation. Since 2022, he said, clean power has crossed the border from Ethiopia into Kenya, bringing electricity to homes and fuel to industry along a transmission corridor that has quietly become one of the most consequential infrastructure links in the region. The road from Mombasa to Hawassa — Kenya’s port gateway feeding directly into Ethiopia’s industrial heartland — was cited as further evidence that the two economies are already more integrated than their political conversations sometimes suggest. “Our partnership grows through our businesses,” he said.

On digital financial services, Abiy was specific in a way that carried considerable commercial and symbolic weight. Safaricom’s expansion into Ethiopia, one of the most watched private sector developments in East Africa in recent years, was presented not merely as a corporate success story but as a bridge between two peoples. “Today, Safaricom connects millions of Ethiopians and M-Pesa helps people send money and make payments,” he said. The observation reflects a broader truth about how economic integration actually happens in practice — not primarily through formal trade agreements, though those matter, but through the daily financial transactions of ordinary people who can now move money across a border as easily as they send a text message.

Safaricom’s Ethiopian operation, which launched in 2022 after the company won one of only two available commercial telecommunications licences, has navigated a complex entry into a market long dominated by the state-owned Ethio Telecom. Its gradual expansion and the rollout of M-Pesa services in Ethiopia represent exactly the kind of private sector-led integration that Abiy was invoking — commercial relationships that create stakeholders in the bilateral partnership on both sides of the border and make the relationship more resilient to political disruption.

The prime minister’s address moved beyond infrastructure and technology to make a more human appeal. He called on the two governments to reduce barriers for farmers and producers trading across the shared border, and urged both countries to make it easier for their citizens to travel, experience each other’s cultures and learn together. “Our farmers and producers must be able to trade more easily across our borders,” he said. “Let more of our people visit each other’s countries, discover our cultures, and learn together.” It was a reminder that economic integration, at its most durable, is built on personal connections and mutual familiarity rather than purely on trade statistics and bilateral agreements.

The bilateral relationship between Kenya and Ethiopia has grown considerably in depth and complexity over the past decade. The two countries cooperate on security matters along their shared border regions, coordinate on infrastructure projects linking the East African coast to landlocked Ethiopia, and have increasingly aligned their positions within regional bodies including the Intergovernmental Authority on Development. Kenya’s port infrastructure at Mombasa remains Ethiopia’s primary gateway to global maritime trade following Addis Ababa’s loss of direct Red Sea access after Eritrea’s independence, a geographical reality that gives the bilateral partnership a structural importance that outlasts any individual administration.

Abiy closed his remarks with a direct pledge to Ruto and to the Kenyan public. He affirmed that Ethiopia would continue to stand with Kenya, and he urged Ruto to sustain and deepen the partnership that had already produced measurable results. The message was warm, but it carried the practical undertone of a leader who wants the relationship institutionalised rather than dependent on the personal rapport between two heads of state.

That institutionalisation is precisely what Kenya and Ethiopia need to pursue. Presidential friendships are valuable but transient. Trade corridors, energy grids, digital payment networks and simplified border procedures outlast any individual leader and create constituencies for continued cooperation that are far more powerful than diplomatic goodwill alone.

Abiy came to Eldoret to celebrate Kenya’s heroes. He left having made the case that the best tribute to those who built these nations is ensuring that the generations who follow them do not have to choose between being neighbours and being partners.

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