Poland in Kenya

Historical view
In November 1973, Mr. Didier Ratsiraka, then the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Madagascar, paid a visit to Poland. The decision to establish diplomatic relations between the Polish People’s Republic (PRL – Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa) and the Republic of Madagascar was made during his stay in Warsaw. A joint announcement on this matter was published on 28th of November 1973 – simultaneously in both capitals – Warsaw and Antananarivo. In 1975 the first ambassador of PRL – Julian Twaróg, accredited permanently to Tanzania, submitted letters of credentials to President Ramanantsoa. Currently, the Republic of Madagascar remains within the territorial competence of the Polish Embassy in Nairobi.

Political cooperation after 1989
On the occasion of 25th anniversary of establishing diplomatic relations between Poland and Madagascar, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of both countries exchanged letters to ensure further development of friendly relations. In 1998, the Honorary Consulate headed by Honorary Consul Dr. Zbigniew Kasprzyk was opened in Antananarivo. The first visit of the Polish Deputy Minister of Foreign Affaris to Madagascar took place in 2016. The Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Minister Joanna Wronecka, took part in the XVI Summit of the Francophonie States. Minister Wronecka also met with Beatrice Attallah - Minister of Foreign Affairs of Madagascar.

The Republic of Madagascar with its GDP per capita currently amounting to just over 400 USD belongs to the group of the poorest countries in the world. Despite political stability and lack of internal conflicts, short periods of economic growth are interwoven with long periods of recession. In economic terms, Madagascar is highly vulnerable to external shocks, due to its dependence on external financing, tourism as well as exports (mainly vanilla – 80% of world production) among other things. In addition, its economy is hardly diversified and is based primarily on agriculture. Nevertheless in the recent years a number of positive trends have been recorded in the Malagasy economy: fast growth (4,2% in 2016 nd 2017, 5% in 2018), inflation does not exceed 10% (in 2018 it was 7,8%) and in 2017 the International Monetary Fund decided to open a three-year credit line for for the Malagasy government. This decision was sustained during the visit of IMF experts, who also underlined Malagasy authorities’ success in the fight against corruption and in management. According to the data from the Ministry of Enterprise and Technology for 2018, the Republic of Madagascar is Poland’s 104th largest partner in terms of volume of imports, which in the last year amounted to 14.2 million euros. On another hand, Poalnd exported goods with a total value of 3.4 million euros, which means that in 2018, in foreign trade with the Republic of Madagascar, Poland recorded a deficit of 10.8 million euros.

Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Nairobi took part in the European Film Festival in 2018 as part of the promotion of the Polish culture in Madagascar. The Island still holds a memory of Maurycy Beniowski, who stayed there in the second half of the XVIII century as well as Arkady Fiedler who visited Madagascar twice – in 1937 and 1965-66. On the Island one can find streets named after both Poles as well as their commemorative plaques.

Since 2016 every year several students from Madagascar take up studies in the second and third degree in Poland in technical faculties as part of the scholarship of the Polish Committee for UNESCO. Malgasy clergy is also educated in Poland and the Stefan Wyszyński University and in seminars. No Polish citizen is currently study.

Recognition of academic qualifications

In Madagascar operates the only one Polish organization within the Nairobi consular disctrict. The POLka Association was founded in 2006. It gathers about 30 members of the Malagasy-Polish community. Mr. Albert Zięba is the current President of POLka.