Throughout history, geography has played a tremendously influential role in global development, affecting the language, philosophy, culture, religion and economics of people and communities everywhere.

Notions of sovereignty are tightly interwoven with territorial delineations on the face of the earth. The ideas of geopolitics and geostrategy are directly linked with the concept of geography. It is not an exaggeration to state that geography drives the wealth and poverty, war and peace, plight and prospects of all the nations of the world. Never has this fact been more significant than it is now. Geography presents both daunting challenges and incredible opportunities.

In 50 years of Kenyan independence, our location in the Greater Eastern Africa region - on the shores of the Indian Ocean - has subjected us to the turbulent energy of the Cold War as well as the 'hot' conflicts that followed its thawing. Before then, this location made pre-colonial and colonial Kenyan an inevitable participant - willing or otherwise - in momentous global events including the slave trade and two world wars.