 Today we're speaking to Jeff Tooth, Australia's High Commissioner to Kenya. Hi Jeff. Now Jeff, you're an ambassador, a High Commissioner and a permanent representative. Why is that and how does it work? The reason behind it is that I'm High Commissioner to four countries. That's Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda. I'm Ambassador to the three non-British Commonwealth countries in South Sudan, Somalia and Burundi. South Sudan I'm the first Australian ambassador to actually visit the world's newest country. But I'm also a permanent representative to a number of UN agencies. Nairobi, where I'm based, is the fourth UN city after Vienna, Geneva, New York. And there is located the United Nations Environment Program and the UN Habitat as well as some very big UN agencies. Like WFP, that's not the headquarters but because of their coverage they have a big involvement there. And it works because I've got some very hard working stuff. That's how we manage to do it. I'm 74, very good Australians and Kenyans and people from other countries in the region that allow us to work on Australia's interests with both those countries and those agencies. There's also an advantage to it because the East African community nations, the five countries of Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Burundi and Rwanda are working to become a union so it makes a lot of sense us covering those countries as well. So there's some advantages to it and it allows for a very interesting work environment. Australia first established diplomatic relations in East Africa 50 years ago starting with Kenya and Tanzania. What are those relationships like now 50 years later? Very good. We have friendly relationships with all those countries. The five of the East African community in South Sudan in particular because of the very strong diaspora community we have. Somalia of course being a failed state that's a more difficult relationship to have. But with the other countries very strong indeed. We don't have the sort of enormously substantial interest that some countries have including of course with Great Britain because a lot of those former colonies are Great Britain or France and some of the other colonial powers. But we're seeing in a very positive light by these countries. We've had a lot of good, solid people-to-people links. Australians do some wonderful things in these countries. In the NGO community working for the United Nations as volunteers and we're good tourists as well. We're very keen to go to that place. And we've also got some new business links which are building very strongly. The education links are strong. Kenya is our second biggest education market. And in the recent years we've had a deliberate policy of re-engaging with Africa and I don't think it's more obvious than in these countries that we're now really focused on Australia's interests there and their interests in Australia and it's going forward in a very positive way. Geoff moving on now to the trade relationship between Australia and East Africa what are the best prospects for improving those relationships? We're strongest in the mining sector across Africa. In fact it's a very, very substantial investment in involvement now. We have at last estimate 240 Australian mining companies operating across Africa and some $50 billion investment. This is where we're really showing the way. The strength of the Australian economy has much to do with our mining sector and that's the cutting edge of our involvement in the business community in Africa. So for example in Kenya there's now a very positive mining company called Base Resources which is developing a titanium mine which will double Kenya's mining income by itself. There's another company called Aviva Gold which is making some very encouraging signs in Kenya's mining industry hasn't gone very far over the last 50 years of nationhood. Tanzania is a different story. There are 26 Australian mining companies already there. So that's on its way and there's growth potential everywhere in all the countries that we have in East Africa and it's something we're looking at closely and working in mining but elsewhere there are other opportunities as well. It's green fields for Australia but already there are Australian IT companies on the ground. Australian education providers are everywhere looking for good students, good quality students to come and study in Australia. So there are a lot of trade opportunities there and as I mentioned earlier agriculture is an area that we see also much more potential because of our skills, our capacity to sell some great technology. We're already heavily involved in the agriculture research institutes in Africa and I think that down the track we'll see a lot of opportunities for Australian agricultural companies. Of course last year we saw terrible scenes when Africa experienced a shocking drought and a humanitarian crisis as a result of that. What did Australia do in that case to help and what are we doing to make sure that that situation doesn't happen again? Australians should be very proud of what they did and what Australia did in response to that. It was one of the worst humanitarian disasters in history impacting on 13 million people and Australia was amongst the most generous countries in responding to it. A very large government contribution but also enormous support from the Australian community fundraising events all over Australia and a really substantial contribution. So that helped ensure that this crisis which of course impacts the most vulnerable in the main the poor, the children, the nomadic peoples of these areas. It particularly hit Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, South Sudan, those sort of countries which are already extremely marginal and vulnerable in the areas. So the Australian contribution in terms of immediate humanitarian assistance we were amongst the fastest to move as well. Then Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd made a visit to Somalia and really we worked very closely with the WFP, UNHCR and other major donors and Australian NGOs to get on the ground. But this while the immediacy of the humanitarian crisis is over there is always the potential for another one. There are a lot of solid indicators. The next one could be even worse down the track. Climate change is impacting on the region in a big way. Agriculture is becoming more and more marginal in some areas. Population growth is putting more and more pressure on the land and indigenous nomadic ways of life are dying out. So the Australian aid program and Australian experts, agricultural experts and others are working on ways of developing resilience in these communities. Some very innovative ideas from stock insurance and other programs are underway and the Australian aid vote isn't just confined to the immediate humanitarian response providing food and water and so on to those in disaster situations. It's looking at ways to alleviate the disaster next time and what this did show in areas where resilience work was done whether by UD&DP including through Australian funding the impact of the drought was far less. So those lessons are going to help next time around and Australia is going to be part of that. There's a steady flow of Australian tourists who visit East Africa and then African students that come to Australia. Are those numbers still increasing? Yeah, I think the strength of the Australian dollar, Kenya is on everyone's bucket list to travel to. I think the age just had Kenya and Tanzania, the Serengeti and the other areas as amongst the hottest places to take be a tourist nowadays. And as I said the strength of the Australian dollar means people have more money to go to those sort of places and there are more traffic routes opening up. We now have a co-chair between Qantas and Kenya airways so we are seeing a substantial increase in numbers travelling. The world's most travelled man last year raked Kenya the number one country on the world to visit. I think disappointing for us, I think he raked Australia third but I disagree of course about that. So we are seeing more and more Australians coming. It's doing some interesting things too. It's not just pure tourism. Of course the safari parks of Kenya are world famous and world leading and extraordinary things to see there. The coastal districts are fabulous beaches and the like not as good as Australian beaches but they're still great and there's a lot of history to see. But Australians are also getting involved in volunteer tourism and going to see development sites as well. And we have some Australians doing some extraordinary things in these countries and one I can think of there's a woman called Emma who's developed a school in Tanzania, in Arusha area in Tanzania and Australians are coming there staying a couple of days before they climb Mount Kilimanjaro or visit the Serengeti and experiencing what a Tanzanian student goes through and they're getting to visit the village structures and seeing all that and they're becoming more engaged in development activities as a response and that's just one part of what we're seeing a much more active tourism, a more socially aware tourism and there are a lot of opportunities in the part of the world I cover. On the other side of things there are Kenyan tourists coming to Australia as well there's growing middle class in East Africa which are looking for tourism opportunities and we're of course encouraging them to come and spend their dollars in Australia. But also we have a very strong and long history of providing education to students in East Africa particularly Kenya which is our number two market for students in Africa. They find Australian academic institutions not only very good and providing them a very practical and focused education but they find the Australian way of life and attitude to life much closer to Africa and I think they find some of our competitors I think they like the weather more as well too and all those sort of things, it helps us. The Australian dollar has a reverse effect of course in that way, it helps Australian tourists afford to come to Africa, it doesn't really help Australian African students come to Australia but they're still coming, they recognise just how good Australia's education is and the opportunities it provides and they're still coming and there's still a lot of interest. We mentioned earlier that you're accredited to a number of countries in East Africa and of course two of them, South Sudan and Somalia have fairly difficult security situations. What can Australia do there to help? South Sudan and Somalia have serious security issues they both feature very prominently on the UN Security Council agendas and there is constant talk there's a lot of grounds for optimism though but Australia can have a very positive role in both countries and we've already done quite a lot we support the African Union's involvement in South Sudan and Somalia for example we have Australian troops on the ground in South Sudan in peacekeeping roles and Australian federal police they're doing important jobs there and we have been involved in Sudan and South Sudan for some time at that level. We will continue to look for opportunities to do that I mentioned earlier the South Sudanese Diaspora in Australia 30,000 South Sudanese, up to 30,000 South Sudanese in Australia came here as part of our refugee program we're going back to being involved in the world's newest state and help it establish its statehood these are important players and people we can work with we'll work with the international community look for more opportunities we are becoming more engaged in some of the institutions that are working on Somalia and South Sudan our aid vote is on the increase and allowing us more latitude to do programs and projects in both countries you mentioned the high number of tourists from Australia that travel to East Africa do you have any advice for them before they leave? well they should definitely register, ensure and subscribe and to register that means register with the smarttraveller.gov.au which ensures that your travel records your address, your contact details are available to the Australian High Commission in Nairobi if something goes wrong and we can help you ensure just to make sure that you have travel insurance always vital no matter where you're travelling in the world Africa, things can go wrong you can lose things, you can need hospital care those things can lead to extraordinary costs if you aren't insured you may need to be medivac that is a major hit to your travel budget if you're not insured and subscribe and that means subscribe to travel updates so that we can send to you an update on if something goes wrong 99.99% of the time nothing will go wrong you'll have the most fabulous time, amazing memories but in that little percentage of time that something can go wrong the best thing is to be prepared and be prepared by registering, ensuring and subscribing very smart move and secondly we can also use that information to tell you about important events like Anzac Day there's a major Anzac Day ceremony in Nairobi for example but also all across East Africa and if you're travelling around that time a very moving Australian event to participate in we put it on our website as well and encourage you to all look at our website Australians to look at our website when travelling as well but most of all have a great time it's the best advice and just finally what words would you use to encapsulate Australia's relationship with the countries of East Africa friendly and with great potential thanks very much for that Jeff thank you and that was Jeff Tooth Australia's High Commissioner to Kenya