India steps up maritime security cooperation with Kenya

India on Tuesday set the stage for stepping up its maritime security cooperation with Kenya – thus making yet another move to respond to its strategic rival China’s bid to expand its geopolitical and geoeconomic influence in the Indian Ocean region.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a meeting with the visiting Kenyan President William Samoei Ruto in New Delhi, India offered the East African nation a Line of Credit (LoC) of $250 million for the modernisation of agriculture. The two sides inked five pacts to step up cooperation in diverse fields like sports, standards, digital transformation, higher education and culture.

New Delhi offered Nairobi a customised training programme for 20 scientists of the Kenya Space Agency and the University of Nairobi at the Indian Space Research Organisation in space technology applications. The two sides agreed to launch a geospatial information portal for Kenya with remote sensing data sets provided by India.

“The vast Indian Ocean linking Mumbai and Mombasa has been a witness to the age-old ties between India and Kenya,” Modi said after his meeting with Ruto. He said that India and Kenya, being two Indian Ocean nations, had a shared priority of strengthening maritime security and combatting piracy and drug trafficking. He also said that India’s endeavour for a free, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific region would be bolstered by its closer maritime cooperation with Kenya.

The two leaders agreed to enhance information sharing related to maritime security in the Indian Ocean Region and support the work undertaken by the Information Fusion Centre – Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) for real-time information sharing between both nations to enhance Maritime Domain Awareness. India took note of Kenya’s important role as a member of the DCoC-JA (Djibouti Code of Conduct Jedda Amendment).

New Delhi offered a slot for an International Liaison Officer representing the DCoC-JA at the IFC-IOR at Gurugram in Haryana as well as an Indian Navy officer as deployed as an instructor at Kenya Navy Training College (KNTC) to be considered in 2024 to exchange best practices to develop a broader outlook towards the security of the east coast of Africa.

The leaders agreed to deepen maritime security cooperation by further strengthening existing dialogue mechanisms like the India-Kenya Joint Defence Cooperation Committee set up under the Memorandum of Understanding on Defence Cooperation signed between the two countries in 2016 and establishing new institutional mechanisms including the staff level talks between the Naval forces of the two countries.