The Kenya-Belgium data collection includes about 111,800 biotic observations on benthos, algae, fish, zooplankton, phytoplankton, birds and mangroves which cover more than 400 unique locations that were sampled between 1873 and 1999. The scope of this data digitization project was to recover data in theses and reports resulting from marine and coastal research activities in the Eastern African region conducted between 1984 and 1999. Data were digitized and quality checked in the frame of the Belgian LifeWatch project. The dataset provides a better insight into the different types of research conducted between 1985 and 1996 in frame of the Kenya-Belgium cooperation in marine sciences (KBP) project and can facilitate further coastal biodiversity research in Kenya.