26 •
The Lion King
• April - June 2015
pion. But Kenyans have also made
incursion into field events as well.
In the just concluded Olympics, Julius
Yego, the man fondly refered to as
“You-Tube Man” having horned his
skills by training through You-Tube,
broke yet another of his own record
with a javelin throw of 87.71metres to
finish second at the Rome Diamond
League. Yego, a fortnight earlier, set
a national record winning the Ostrava
IAAF Challenge with a throw of 86.88m.
The Kenyan musical group, the Moipei
Quartet, recently became the first
non-Americans to sing the American
anthem before the NBA playoffs
match between San Antonio Spurs
and Los Angeles Clippers in Texas.
Nothing could have made Kenyans
more proud.
Population
profile
All these achievements are anchored
on a young and energetic popula-
tion-about 73 percent of Kenya’s pop-
ulation are aged 30 years and below-
which has come to define Kenya’s
economic renaissance.
With a GDP of about $ 134.7 billion,
after rebasing its economy, Kenya is
the financial, logistics and transport
hub for East Africa. While agriculture
has for long been described as “the
backbone” of Kenya’s economy, the
country also has a burgeoning service
industry. The privatisation of the tele-
communication industry has seen the
sector grow in leaps and bounds.
M-PESA
The invention of M-PESA by the coun-
try’s largest telecommunication net-
work, Safaricom, has not only revolu-
tionized mobile money but also mobile
banking. M-PESA is a mobile money
transfer service that enable users to
transfer money using their mobile
phones. M-PESA’s watershed effects
have since reverberated into the
neighbouring state of Tanzania and
far away in Afghanistan and India.
Crude Oil discov-
eries and energy
diversification
The discovery of oil deposits in Turkana
County means that Kenya will soon
join the coveted league of oil export-
ers. The country has also been diver-
sifying its energy supplies from the
non-renewable, erratic hydro-power
to renewable energies like geother-
mal and wind.
Kenya was the first African nation
to drill geothermal power. The first
geothermal exploitation started in the
1950s and by 1967, 27 shallow wells
The discovery of oil
deposits in Turkana
County means that
Kenya will soon join
the coveted league of
oil exporters.
Wilderbeast Migration
Country Focus
| Kenya
