President Uhuru Kenyatta and visiting Estonian leader Kersti Kaljulaid have said Kenya and Estonia will partner in championing for the protection of multilateralism on the global stage.
The two said the system guarantees fairness and justice in the global stage, and vowed to use the two countries non-permanent membership on the UN Security Council to jointly advance multilateralism.
President Kenyatta and his guest spoke on Thursday evening at State House, Nairobi, during a cocktail party held in honour of the visiting Estonian leader.
President Kenyatta said Kenya and Estonia had agreed to work together in pursuit of common goals such as regional and global peace, climate change and the gender agenda.
“We are countries that are interested in regional and global peace, countries that are interested in seeing the multilateralism system work, countries that are interested in seeing private sector fully entrenched, creating jobs and opportunities especially for our young people,” President Kenyatta said.
He said Kenya and Estonia had succeeded in exploiting talents and skills of their citizens to build their economies through the deployment of digital technologies.
On her part, President Kaljulaid said she had been impressed by Kenya’s use of digital technologies in public service delivery, and advised the country to consider tightening its cyber security protocols so as to ensure that the systems are tamper proof.
The Estonian leader said her country will partner with Kenya in pushing for global issues that affect small countries especially climate change, cyber security and peace.
“We are actually together in the (UN) Security Council and we all know why small nations are elected to the security council. This is because we adhere to international rules and regulations,” President Kaljulaid said.
She assured that Estonia will partner with Kenya in advocating for the enactment of laws that will ensure a safer international cyber security environment.
“We have been pushing digital security issues at the security council because after all when we are doing digital transformation. Our sovereignty will one day depend on how our systems work,” President Kaljulaid said.
The Estonian said her country was determined to forge a strong technology partnership with Kenya that will see the two countries share expertise in the area.
“We have wonderful start up communities who are young and dynamic and have a saturated market, therefore we’ve turned our eyes to this continent. As leaders, what we are doing is follow our people, our businesses and that’s why the relationship between Kenya, Africa and Estonia has developed quickly,” President Kaljulaid said.