Kenya has entered the International Institute for Management Development (IMD) World Competitiveness Ranking for the first time in history and, while it was at it, placed itself directly at the top in Africa and 56th in the world.

A debut with fanfare: like those footballers who make their debut for the national team by scoring a goal, and then the coach hopes it wasn't just a stroke of luck.

The IMD has been around for 37 years, and in all that time no one had thought to invite Nairobi to the party. Now here it is, alongside Namibia and Oman, as new entrants to a club where the language is “doing business”, “efficient government” and “we can do it, maybe tomorrow”.

The 2025 report comes at a time when everything in the world is changing: regional balances, economic dynamics, and even the patience of citizens, which is an increasingly scarce commodity. In the midst of all this, Kenya is carving out a place in the sun, with competitiveness that — according to the IMD — has risen, fallen and risen again over the last five years, much like the sea at Watamu when the Kaskazi wind blows.

But there have been improvements:

a more stable domestic economy, lively international trade, institutions that are a little more orderly. It almost seems as if someone has swept the floor, just to make a good impression on guests.

Then, of course, there are also those rooms in the house that you prefer to lock before letting strangers in:

science that is struggling, technology that moves at a tuk-tuk pace, an education system that does not always manage to catch up with the future as it runs away. And what about social parameters? Light and shade, like a sunset over the Indian Ocean disturbed by a sudden storm.

The IMD does not stop at the ranking: it also tells the less Instagrammable side of Kenya.

The protests, the biblical floods that turn the streets into brown rivers, and the political turmoil that culminated in the impeachment of the vice-president.

Add to that the debt that rises like the tide in Mombasa and the taxes that fall like boulders on the heads of citizens and businesses. All this, says the report, weighs on economic confidence. And confidence, as we know, is the most fragile currency on the continent.

So what now?

Now it's time to think about the future: more innovation, labour productivity, investments that don't melt away at the first sign of heat, and a strategy that doesn't change with every monsoon season. If Kenya wants to remain competitive, it will have to learn to run a marathon, not a hundred metres.

But in the meantime, the first step has been taken. Entry into the index is not just a medal — it is an invitation to the big table of global discussion, where economic resilience, political agility and other words that seem difficult but ultimately mean one simple thing are discussed: resisting the waves without drowning.

Kenya has arrived.

Now we have to see how long it can stay.