Are Developments Like Tatu City A Sign of Kenya’s Development?

Africa has had what can be referred to as a bad rap over the decades. The continent has been plagued by war, poverty, disease and corruption. The rest of the world has treated Africa like a toddler by giving aid shackled with difficult conditions while declining to push for fair trade with the continent. Considering the ravages of colonialization and the descent of many African countries into civil wars, the fact that the continent is now receiving positive reporting is encouraging. With facts that have been over quoted such as, “Six of the world’s ten fastest growing economies are from Africa” featuring in almost every news reporting of Africa’s progress the signs are good.

Africa rising as a narrative has been peddled to all and sundry. The narrative has been received well in some quarters, while being torn apart in others. The argument by those against the narrative in a nutshell is that it is not a creation of Africans themselves but of foreigners who are outside looking in and that there are too many Africans still living in poverty to justify that narrative. Still, it cannot be denied that the middle class is growing and that there is a lot of interest from foreign investors including new ones like China.

Kenya was named the ninth largest African economy after rebasing its economy a little under a year ago, officially making it a middle income economy. Granted, rebasing does not mean that socio economic challenges cease to exist but that debt levels fall as a proportion of GDP. Since then, Kenya has hosted GES (Global Entrepreneurship Summit) and President Obama and signed MOUs with the US Government that are set to boost Kenya’s economy.

Yes, the shilling has been doing terribly in the last few months and corruption is at epidemic levels, but if we are to look at superficial evidence of development, we could find a few. The last five years have seen a boom in malls. Almost every major residential area has one now, and they are always filled with shopping Kenyans. We cannot deny that the roads are better with especially the completion of the Thika Superhighway. The real estate sector also seems to be booming (though it could also be argued that it’s a bubble waiting to burst) with Nairobi turning into a concrete jungle.

Developments such as Tatu City could also be added to the list of signs of development. Dubbed a ‘smart city’, Tatu City, a part of the Kenya Vision 2030 agenda, is a 2,500-acre, mixed-use and mixed-income development with residential, commercial, industrial, tourism, social and recreation amenities for more than 70,000 residents and 30,000 day visitors. Underlying Tatu City’s design is a visionary concept aiming to shift urban development in Kenya from the familiar single node model to a decentralized urban environment. By doing so, Tatu will significantly decongest the City of Nairobi by offering a unique live, work and play environment.

The man behind Tatu City, Stephen Jennings, is the founder of Renaissance Group, Africa’s largest urban land developer with over 30,000 acres of visionary projects in the growth trajectories of large cities in Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia and Democratic Republic of Congo. Stephen has been living and working in emerging markets for more than 20 years and is a pioneer of capital markets in Central & Eastern Europe and Africa, responsible for over $200 billion of investment into these regions.

Tatu City has been dogged by controversy since its inception which has seen the project stall, though the project seems to be currently underway. Stephen Jennings will be giving a public lecture, ‘How to win as an investor in Africa’ at Louis Leakey Auditorium at the National Museums of Kenya where talk about Tatu City and other projects Rendevour is looking to work on as well as challenges investors face especially in emerging markets and how to overcome them. For those unable to attend, you can follow the conversation on Twitter via the hashtag #TatuTrueTalk.