No One Waits for Washington: Huawei, Development Timelines, and State Priorities in Kenya and Ethiopia
Kenya and Ethiopia’s continued contracting with Huawei leaves little ambiguity: development pressures, not great-power rivalry, drive African telecommunications procurement. PRC financing and implementation models offered fast rollout, predictable delivery schedules, and integrated financing that U.S. tools could not. The outcomes were not geopolitical realignment, but a straightforward consequence of which supplier fit the state’s administrative and developmental requirements.
U.S. officials and policy analysts have explained African adoption of the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) digital infrastructure as a consequence of insufficient U.S. engagement. According to this presumption, when Washington reduces diplomatic presence, financing, or policy focus, African governments turn to PRC providers by default. That logic assigns strategic agency to external powers and treats African states as responsive, rather than directive. However, Kenya and Ethiopia’s economic activities complicate that narrative. Both governments continued to contract with Huawei and related PRC firms during periods when Washington employed sanctions, diplomatic pressure, and development financing tools designed to reshape national telecommunications procurement. This does not mean security concerns are irrelevant, but it highlights that they were secondary to administrative and developmental imperatives.
The persistence of Huawei contracting in these contexts indicates that state decision-making followed domestic priorities rather than alignment with great-power competition. PRC lender-contractor arrangements offered integrated financing and implementation timelines that aligned with the demands of national development planning and state administrative capacity. On the other hand, U.S. contracts are often lengthy and unstable due to difficulties in implementation and enforcement. U.S. development financing and sanctions pressure have not altered Kenyan or Ethiopian domestic conditions, which have been more suitable for PRC contract arrangements.
U.S. Strategy and Assumptions About Telecommunications Alignment
U.S. strategy toward PRC technology firms rests on the premise that telecommunications network architecture shapes data access, state vulnerability, and geopolitical alignment. Based on this premise, the United States seeks to influence national procurement decisions through sanctions and development financing.
The Treasury Department added Huawei to the Office of Foreign Asset Control’s Non-Specially Designated Nationals Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies List, creating licensing requirements for transactions involving U.S.-linked components. Additionally, Treasury sanctions restrict U.S. investment and payments for PRC surveillance firms. These measures signal to partner governments that Huawei contracting may carry security and compliance risks. The department’s objective is not solely to block transactions, but also to shift the perception of acceptable suppliers. However, when surveillance capability becomes an established feature of network procurement, PRC firms gain a structural advantage over U.S. alternatives, effectively locking Washington out of markets where structural limits prevent it from competing.
Washington also employs the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) to support digital infrastructure. These government agencies emphasize competitive procurement, transparency, and multistage review. In the DFC and MCC’s investment review process, financing and implementation remain sequenced with multiple checkpoints. A government accepts financing first, conducts contractor selection later, and proceeds to implementation only after procurement compliance is complete. This structure reflects U.S. regulatory norms, which are often contradictory to conditions in telecommunications expansion, where state agencies require predictable delivery schedules and consolidated oversight channels.
U.S. economic statecraft assumes that once financing becomes available, African governments could shift to approved suppliers. That premise treats financing availability as the primary determinant of procurement. However, Kenya and Ethiopia’s telecommunications expansion projects have shown that sequencing and structure of financing, not their presence, shape procurement outcomes. Given the tightly timed, front-loaded capital requirements of telecommunications projects, ease of integration into existing construction and rollout schedules becomes a decisive consideration in financing choices. The constraint was not the volume of U.S. financing, but the structure attached to it. DFC and MCC require multistage reviews, competitive bidding, and compliance checks that extend preparation timelines beyond what telecommunications agencies such as Huawei and ZTE can accommodate. For governments operating under fixed delivery schedules and tightly sequenced development plans, these delays make U.S. financing impractical regardless of scale.
Kenya: Development Planning and Contract Integration
Kenyan authorities linked telecommunications expansion to national development planning under Vision 2030, which identified digital network coverage as essential for economic modernization and public service provision. The National Optical Fibre Backbone Infrastructure (NOFBI) project, initiated in the mid-2000s, partnered with Huawei in core deployment phases. This early contracting established a working relationship among Kenyan engineering teams, Huawei technical staff, and regulatory agencies responsible for spectrum, infrastructure access, and network standards.
Safaricom, Kenya’s primary mobile operator, incorporated Huawei equipment into its network expansion project, allowing Huawei to gain technical familiarity and contribute to standardized maintenance procedures. This institutional familiarity mattered: telecommunications procurement includes long-term operability, training cycles, and network management burden. A supplier with a long operational footprint can understand both the technical systems and workflow expectations within the state.
Washington encouraged Kenyan officials to reconsider Huawei during planning for the 5G rollout, citing concerns about data security and foreign access to routing infrastructure. Regardless, Kenyan ministries still contracted Huawei for key components of the Konza Technopolis project, government cloud infrastructure, and national data center systems.
The financing structure of Huawei’s contract played a key role in Kenya’s decision. The Export-Import Bank of China offered credit tied directly to Huawei contracting, which allowed a single agreement to encompass financing, equipment provision, construction planning, and installation. As such, Kenyan authorities could align project delivery with fiscal calendars and development milestones.
On the other hand, DFC and MCC financing required sequential feasibility studies, procurement competitions, statutory compliance assessments, and separate contractor selection. These procedures extended preparation timelines. Kenyan authorities faced pressure to demonstrate infrastructure progress within national planning cycles and electoral commitments. PRC lender-contractor integration matched those timelines, while U.S. financing did not. The Kenyan case illustrates that procurement decisions reflected development sequencing and administrative coordination, rather than an orientation toward the PRC as a geopolitical partner.
Ethiopia: Telecommunications Expansion and Information Management
Ethiopia followed a different political trajectory from Kenya but exhibited similar procurement logic. Ethio Telecom contracted Huawei and ZTE beginning in 2007 for nationwide network expansion. These contracts included equipment delivery, installation, training, and long-term technical support. As a result, Ethiopian telecommunications personnel developed operational familiarity with PRC-designed systems.
Ethiopia also integrated lawful intercept and monitoring systems developed with Huawei-linked firms. These systems facilitated communications oversight and state information management during periods of political fragmentation and conflict. The United States is unable to replace Huawei because its development finance mechanisms do not support telecommunications surveillance infrastructure. U.S. development tools are statutorily prohibited from financing systems used for domestic monitoring or political control, whereas Huawei-linked firms integrate these functions into broader network expansion packages. Furthermore, PRC financing did not require a conditional review of information governance practices, unlike U.S. requirements that link investment to human rights, political freedoms, and transparent budgeting.
In 2021, during the conflict in northern Ethiopia, Washington imposed sanctions on Ethiopian officials and entities responsible for military operations and rights abuses. While focused on human rights abuses, these sanctions had no altering effects on Ethiopian telecommunications procurement patterns. Ethiopian authorities prioritized continuity of communications networks and the maintenance of state-level information access through PRC financing and contractor arrangements. Ethiopia’s procurement decisions reflected internal governance demands, administrative capacity limits, and infrastructure planning pressures. They were not indicative of alignment or misalignment with Washington’s perception of strategic competition.
Procurement as a State Instrument
Both Kenya and Ethiopia selected PRC telecommunications and surveillance contractors because those firms offered contracting packages that matched domestic planning constraints. Across both cases, four decision-making factors persist. First, there is financing and implementation integration: PRC lenders and contractors operated through unified agreements that eliminated contractor bidding cycles and reduced administrative overhead. The second is predictable delivery schedules: governments could coordinate project sequencing with fiscal years, cabinet decision timelines, and political commitments. The third is administrative embeddedness: long-term technical familiarity, reduced training requirements and network management uncertainty. Last is governance support capacity: PRC systems enabled communications monitoring where state authorities deemed it necessary.
U.S. sanctions and diplomatic pressure altered discourse, but did not alter these structural incentives. U.S. financing procedures separated funding from implementation and required a multistage review. These features lengthened preparation and reduced predictability. Kenyan and Ethiopian officials prioritized domestic planning goals by choosing more efficient and stable PRC contracts. Their decisions demonstrate that procurement serves as an instrument of state policy rather than a reflection of geopolitical allegiance.
Strategic Consequences and Policy Adjustment
Kenya and Ethiopia’s continued contracting with Huawei and related firms during periods of active U.S. sanctions enforcement and development financing outreach reflected state planning priorities, administrative capacity conditions, and governance objectives. PRC firms met a practical need that U.S. investment could not: they offered turnkey telecommunications infrastructure at lower costs, with rapid deployment timelines, and minimal governance requirements. For governments facing urgent connectivity gaps, this made PRC providers far more accessible. The assumption that African states adopt PRC technologies due to U.S. withdrawal misrepresents the autonomy and strategic reasoning of African governments.
U.S. strategy cannot redirect telecommunications alignment without modifying the structure and sequencing of development financing and procurement engagement. Expanding U.S. influence requires aligning with the temporal and administrative logic of state planning, not simply expanding financial availability. Washington would need to increase early-stage coordination with implementing structures, allow for more integrated contracting structures, and provide clearer delivery timelines to match the administrative pressures African agencies face. Absent these adjustments, DFC and MCC funds will remain procedurally mismatched to the operational realities of network expansion.
These procurement dynamics matter for the broader U.S.-China competition because they determine who supplies the digital infrastructure that upholds state information systems and long-term technological pathways. When PRC firms become embedded through financing and system design, they shape standards, maintenance cycles, and administrative routines for decades. The strategic outcome is not ideological alignment but structural dependence generated through contract architecture. Without addressing these structural factors, U.S. economic statecraft will continue to operate at the margins of African telecommunications development.
Views expressed are the author’s own and do not represent the views of GSSR, Georgetown University, or any other entity. Image Credit: Sattaya, Getty Images; Image retrieved from Canva.