Kenya’s President Williams Ruto gets the first state visit by any African leader to the United States for the first time since 2008 for having stepped up on the global stage, says the White House.

U.S. President Joe Biden will welcome Kenyan President Williams Ruto to the White House this week to discuss the crisis in Haiti and particularly efforts to build trade ties with the American government. 

In an interview with VOA, Frances Brown, the director for African affairs at the National Security Council, gave reasons for the Kenyan president being the first African leader to visit the White House since 2008.

Ms Brown said, “The first thing is that we see a lot of complementarities in terms of what we’re trying to do on climate, what we’re trying to do on debt for the developing world, and on security issues.

“The second reason we wanted to have this state visit with Kenya is that we are both democracies, and our bond is very deep as democracies, and our bond is very deep on people-to-people ties.

“The third reason is that Kenya and the U.S. work similarly in terms of bringing in the private sector to solve global challenges. So, we’ll be talking a lot about those.”

Ms Brown added, “The deliverables you’ll see are in the realms of technology, clean energy and climate transition, of debt relief, of democracy, of people-to-people ties and on health-related issues.” 

Mr Ruto’s journey, billed as “historic,” will focus on the trade and security partnership between Kenya and the U.S. as both countries pledge to lead a UN-backed multinational mission to restore order in gang violence-ridden Haiti.

Kenya has offered to send 1,000 personnel, along with forces pledged by several other countries, to Haiti even though the U.S. had ruled out deploying its forces.

Mr Ruto has defended the undertaking as a “mission for humanity” in the Western hemisphere’s poorest nation, which has suffered from poverty, political instability and natural disasters for decades.

However, the United States is the largest backer of the force, pledging more than $300 million since the Haiti crisis intensified several years ago, but other countries have been slow to offer support.