President Barack Obama is co-hosting the Global Entrepreneurship Summit in Kenya Saturday, where he is making his first visit as U.S. president.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta introduced the U.S. president, whom he described as a great friend to the African continent.

Obama greeted the summit saying “Niaje Wasee,” Kenyan urban slang for how are you. 

“It is wonderful to be back in Kenya, I am proud to be the first U.S. president to visit Kenya,” Obama said in his opening remarks.  “This is a personal thing for me, my family came from these parts and I have relatives and family here.”

He then quickly got down to business, announcing to the gathering of entrepreneurs and investors that the U.S. had secured more than $1 billion in investiment for new businesses around the world, following up on a promise made at last year’s summit in Morocco.

Obama noted that Africa is one of the fastest growing continents in the world where people are being lifted out of poverty and the middle class is expanding.

“This continent needs to be a future hub of global growth, not just African growth,” he said.

In his remarks, President Kenyatta spoke of Kenya’s security struggles and its swiftly growing economy. He told his audience to tell friends back at home and around the world that “Africa is open and ready for business.”

 

“You all know that for a decade now the economies of Africa have been the fastest growing in the world. Behind these statistics is a story of a new generation of Africans committed to the African renaissance,” he said.

After a discussion onstage with several young entrepreneurs, Obama closed the session exhorting audience members to pursue their business ventures. “Go out there and start something,” he said. “We’re excited about it. We expect great things out of you.”

A delegation of U.S. lawmakers, White House officials and American business leaders is accompanying the president to the summit, a move the U.S. embassy in Nairobi says underscores the importance the United States places on supporting Africa’s entrepreneurs.

The streets of Nairobi have been painted and polished as the city has spared no expense to welcome Obama for what Kenyans have called his “homecoming.”

But security is high for the visit of the U.S. president, with at least 10,000 police officers deployed in Nairobi for his visit. The U.S. embassy has warned that the summit Obama is hosting could be “a target for terrorists.”

Meeting with Kenyatta

Later Saturday, the president will visit the U.S. embassy before meeting with Kenyatta for talks expected to center on building trade ties, countering violent extremism in Kenya and across the region, boosting government transparency, and curbing the poaching of Kenya’s wildlife.

The president’s plane touched down in Nairobi Friday evening. President Kenyatta greeted the U.S. president on the tarmac. Obama, whose father was Kenyan, later had dinner with his Kenyan relatives, including his step-grandmother Mama Sarah and his half-sister Auma Obama.

U.S. officials say security concerns will prevent the president from traveling to the west Kenyan village of Kogelo where his father was born and is buried.

Barack Obama, Sr. was an economist who served in the government of Kenya’s first president — the father of the current President Kenyatta.

 

Obama last visited in 2006 as a U.S. senator, but this is his first trip as president – and that, says Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto, means a lot to his country.

Security concerns

 

While much of the visit will focus on boosting trade, the other big issue on the agenda will be security when Obama meets President Kenyatta.

“Our collaboration, especially on security, is historic. It’s always been there, but of course we’ve enhanced it a lot in the last few years because of the threat – the global threat actually – that we all face,” Kenyan Foreign Secretary Amina Mohamed said.

 

Kenya has been targeted repeatedly by the Somali militant group al-Shabab. The deadliest attack took place at Garissa University College in April when 148 people, most of them students, were slaughtered on campus.

Ethiopia

After two days in Kenya, Obama will become the first U.S. president to visit Ethiopia.

Ahead of his arrival in Africa, human rights groups urged the president to use his trip to call for fundamental human rights reforms in both countries.

In a letter to Obama, a group of 14 nongovernmental organizations and individual experts said the governments of Kenya and Ethiopia “face real security threats, but we are concerned by the way in which each government has responded, often with abusive security measures and increased efforts to stifle civil society and independent media.”

Marissa Melton and Dan Joseph contributed to this report from Washington
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