Summit remarks · 7 September 2025
Excellencies, Heads of State and Government, Your Excellency, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Your Excellency, Dr. Carla Natalie Barnett, SecretaryGeneral of CARICOM, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a profound honour to join you at this historic Africa– CARICOM Summit. Allow me to express deep appreciation to our gracious hosts and to every leader here for your demonstrated commitment to advancing this unique and vital transcontinental partnership.
We gather here today not as two regions separated by an ocean, but as one people united by common history, shared struggles, and a collective aspiration for justice and dignity for our people and the global community.
Excellencies, Kenya welcomes the focus of this summit on reparations. The call for reparatory justice is not simply about compensation; it is about restoring dignity, honouring resilience, and correcting historical wrongs. It is both a moral imperative and a unifying cause that speaks powerfully to our shared history of dispossession, resistance, and survival.
For Kenyans, and for our African and Caribbean brothers and sisters, this struggle is deeply personal. The scars of domination, whether through slavery or colonialism, remain etched in our collective memory. In 2013, some of our Kenyan freedom fighters who endured torture and detention under colonial rule finally received recognition and compensation.
That moment proved that history can be confronted, and that justice, though delayed, is still possible.
Yet, reparations must not only look backwards; they must also look to the present and the future. Reparatory justice must mean dismantling the structures of inequality, lifting or easing unsustainable debt burdens, and addressing the chronic underdevelopment imposed on our peoples by centuries of exploitation.
Building on the outcomes of the 1st Africa–CARICOM Summit, the CARICOM Ten-Point Reparations Agenda, and the 47th Ordinary Session of the AU Executive Council, Kenya believes that this second Summit presents a defining opportunity to translate commitment into concrete action.
To this end, we propose the following:
Strengthen the Africa–CARICOM Reparations Working Group by mobilising greater support and resources, enhancing coordination, and developing joint legal and diplomatic strategies for research, advocacy, and action.
Build on progress at the United Nations by working towards a joint resolution that secures reparatory justice firmly on the global agenda.
Advance collaboration on debt justice, recognising that the crushing debt burdens of African and Caribbean countries are direct legacies of colonial exploitation.
Foster deeper people-to-people solidarity through academic programmes, student and youth exchanges, and cultural exhibitions that preserve memory, share experiences, and shape the consciousness of a new generation.
Excellencies, by strengthening our joint efforts, developing common strategies, and advancing coordinated initiatives, Africa and the Caribbean can ensure that reparations speak not only to the injustices of the past, but also to the inequalities of the present and the promise of the future.
Let us seize this moment to build a partnership that delivers lasting and meaningful impact for our peoples; today, and for generations yet to come. I thank you.