Farmajo and Kenyatta to Meet Following Months of Frozen Relations

On Monday, President Mohamed Farmajo traveled to Nairobi. During his trip to the Kenyan capital, the President is expected to meet with President Uhuru Kenyatta. The meeting will take place during the ongoing global forum on reproductive rights.

The last time the two leaders met was in March. That meeting took place in Nairobi under the supervision of Ethiopia. The purpose of the first meeting was to inspire a normalization of the frosty relations between the two nations following the yet-to-be-solved maritime dispute at the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Similarly, another meeting took place briefly under the leadership of the AU Chairman. As with the first meeting, the second one also happened in the sidelines of September’s UN General Assembly. However, it came to nothing when the two leaders opted to present their cases before the Assembly while delivering their speeches.

Relations between Somalia and Kenya have suffered in recent years. The cause of the intense fallout has been the accusation they level against each other. Kenya kicked off the diplomatic spat by saying that Somalia presented maps of a heavily disputed territory at the London Oil Conference. Somalia said Kenya was wrong since the maps omitted the areas that were under dispute.

After that, Mogadishu cut off all its engagements with Nairobi. It transferred all its Somalia-related meetings and conferences from Nairobi to Addis Ababa. President Farmajo went further by using Tanzania as his stopover when traveling to and from South Africa. In the past, he had always preferred Nairobi.

Kenya will be co-hosting the summit together with Denmark and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). During the summit, all attendees will receive reports on the progress of the Plan of Action that 179 countries signed in Cairo in 1994 to fight for the rights of women and girls.

The upcoming summit covers five issues that are important to the 179 signatories. These include the universal right to sexual and reproductive health as a vital ingredient in promoting universal health coverage. It will also evaluate the financing needed to complete ICPD’s Program of Action. The summit also focuses on sustaining the gains made on sexual issues thus far. It will also discuss demographic diversity as a tool for promoting economic grown and achieving sustainable development.

Other thematic areas of interest to the summit include the need for stopping gender-based violence as well as all harmful practices. Participants will discuss the need to uphold the rights to sexual and reproductive health even in the face of humanitarian and fragile situations.