Obama becomes first US president to visit Ethiopia in AU visit

If they fail to agree, additional measures would be considered, she said.

Women, he maintained, are “powerhouse entrepreneurs” though he said they – and other people from certain communities – have historically not been viewed as entrepreneurial in Africa and are at a disadvantage.

“I felt encouraged”, the high school student said. “There were all sorts of rationalizations that were provided by the power structure for decades in the United States for segregation and Jim Crow and slavery, and they were wrong”.

On Saturday, Obama stressed the importance of protecting basic rights, comparing homophobia in Africa to racial discrimination he had encountered in the United States.

Obama had already slammed Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta Saturday during political talks for not doing enough to end corruption.

Obama didn’t get back to his family’s village this time around, but its influence was never far as he visited Kenya for the first time as the U.S. president.

But he said challenges remained and he urged Kenyans, particularly its future leaders, to deal with corruption and tribal conflict, create opportunity for all, improve education and health care, treat women better and confront the threat of terrorism.

A young but impoverished population could be fertile ground for instability and the growth of groups like Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-affiliated Shebab. He is the first U.S. president to visit the East African nation. In 2007 and 2008, election-fuelled clashes between rival ethnic groups killed more than 1,000 people and forced hundreds of thousands more from their homes.

Obama left the country for Ethiopia, the second stop of his tour, where he will attend bilateral meetings with Ethiopian and African Union leaders.

But Obama also relied on his favored son status to bluntly point out where he believes Kenya falls short with “problems that shadow ordinary Kenyans every day”.

Kenya is one of the 36 out of 54 African nations where same-sex relationships are illegal, and sodomy is considered a felony punishable by up to 14 years in prison. It is his first to his late father’s homeland since he became president in 2009 but his fourth visit to the continent.

The president barely knew his father, who died in 1982 after leaving the U.S.to return to Kenya.

“There are some things that we must admit we don’t share – our culture, our societies don’t accept”, Kenyatta said. In 2013, the militants assaulted Nairobi’s Westgate shopping mall, leaving at least 67 people dead.

“But what is true is, is that obviously there are emotions to a visit like this”, he told the crowd.

Kenyan Deputy President William Ruto said in May that there was “no room” for gays in Kenya.

Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow, reporting from Addis Ababa, said Obama is expected to put pressure on authorities to reform and tackle their dismal human rights record.

Obama promised to be back when his presidency ends, telling leading Kenyan broadcaster Capital FM that climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, a safari in the Masai Mara and a beach holiday in Lamu were all on his bucket list.