ZUNGUA KENYA

A challenge to Liberal Spring Democrats. Be the leaders you want.

2011-09-22T05:01:00.000-07:00

We elect leaders then immediately start criticizing them. This is the mystery of Kenyan politics. I suggest that Kenyans, particularly the youth do not have a clear collective description of what we want in a leader. We are interested in a person’s ideas but care less about the inherent values and principles that inform the leader's ideas and actions.

Given, leadership is one of the most observed and least understood phenomena on earth but as we approach 2012, we must make an attempt to agree on some basics so that we don’t repeat the circus.

Because politics always is about competing forces or ideas, it is typical to assume that leadership is about mobilizing one group to dominate or vanquish another. By this, those who lead Group A to commit violence against Group B are "leaders." Even if we remove violence from the equation, and even if the "leader" represents some higher cause or value, the word still means the act of mobilizing with the aim of dominating. Although this may be inevitable, it is not a particularly inspiring or comprehensive portrait of leadership for it implies that one side must always somehow be injured, even if marginally.

My opinion is that leadership can be about promoting the best next thing so that whether one side wins or loses, there is really no real injury.

But let’s addresses the dilemma of where, exactly, this elusive quality of "leadership" resides. Is it a character trait that resides within a single individual as in a person with great leadership potential or is there a group component? A team won because they demonstrated superior leadership in which case leadership was harnessed within the structure of an organization or community.

What I am putting to debate is whether by continuous education and engagement around some common ideas, we can create a powerful movement that develops a magnetic effect that attracts individuals who seek political office so that as we exercise our responsibility to select our representative to bunge or any other office, the emphasis is not only on the qualities they possess but even more, on the nature of their impact on others.

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To prosper, Africa must be colonized again

2011-09-21T06:09:00.000-07:00

The world in entering a period of potential resource scarcity with the west set to scramble to secure future supplies of critical raw materials wherever they will be found. Evidence abounds that Africa is the next frontier for a new global age with wealthiest nation now fully geared for a comeback to Africa and the question only concerns how they are coming. That they will compete for dominance and ultimately partition the continent again is also not in doubt except that with the entry of China and possibly India, the veracity of the competition remains to be seen. The battle for the continents resources will be fierce and brutal. For oil, coal, timber, copper, gold, diamonds, uranium, etc. Don’t doubt.

When in the nineteenth century European imperialist pushed their way into Africa, they were motivated by three main factors; economic, political, and social. It developed following a severe reduction in profitability of slave trade and finally its abolition and suppression, as well as the expansion of the European capitalist industrial revolution. Are the circumstances any different today? Not really. Just look at DRC.

Africa need not put up any resistance this time for if you look at the history of African states since independence, empirical facts indicate that we were more progressive colonized than independent. In fact the greatest decadence, moral decay, widespread poverty and breakdown in law and order has happened after independence and on this, there is no debate.

If civilization is really as it has been described, the most advanced stage of human social development and organization with the elements that constitute it being economic provision, political organization, moral traditions and the pursuit of knowledge, then it is good and Africans were right to pursue and try to adapt to it. But we must also acknowledge that this new order had its tools of administration and required new life skills which we didn’t and seemingly still don’t have.

This has nothing to do with genetic conditions or composition but rather, everything about discovery and the domination of information as a resource which is essential for humans in harnessing nature. Discovery provides the benefit of a new world view and when it progresses into scientific or technological innovations it gives the first mover advantage which usually leads to exclusive expertise which interpreted differently means, dominance.

It is for these reasons that I am justified in believing that for us to progress and prosper once more, we must stop competing and instead accede to two cultures—one, imperial that dominates, and the other, beneficiaries of residual growth and development which if we accept will ensure faster development than that which we experience as sovereign states.

So if we truly yearn for greater opportunity for prosperity and happiness, we must be proactive in unraveling our selfish and irresponsible ways that are surely leading us to destruction and move with speed to pick the nations of our choice and initiate talks on a smooth surrender of our sovereignty for we know not what or how to do in this new order.

Life is a constant presentation of choices that increase in frequency, veracity and gravity and the right choices might accord us some comparative advantage over those that hang on hopelessly only to lose their so called sovereignty.

Perhaps, we need to put some meet to this argument. It was clear by the time we chose to be independent that the imperatives of capitalist industrialization were demand for assured sources of raw materials, the search for guaranteed markets and profitable investment outlets, etc. In about 70 years, they introduced education, large scale farming, mobility through motorized means, the radio, electricity, etc, all of which played a great part in enabling growth and development and this was well established by the time of their exit. Now take a view of Kenya today. Widespread poverty, a huge number of small scale informal farmers, hundreds of thousands of squatters while a few individuals collectively hold hundreds of thousands of acres of idle land. Transport by rail is all but collapsed while commuter transport by road is disorganized and is controlled by extortionist cartels who collude with police and senior government officials fleecing both the investors and commuters. The vehicles themselves can only be described as contraptions of death, and this is common knowledge. No commentary is required to elaborate this point.

Moving on to another point, how relevant are we in the scheme of things? Although GDP has failed to capture some of the factors that make the difference in people’s lives and contribute to their happiness, let us dare to measure Africa’s significance in these terms, in relation to the colonial powers. What we will discover is that many African states are just stubborn deaf, dumb and blind irritants that mysteriously found their way into the table where negotiations were going on. But not for much longer for the sledge hammer has been ordered.

Nations relate on the basis of interests. Interests are managed through negotiations and negotiation has often been described as the art of competitive manipulation. The weaker you are, the more unscrupulous or dexterous the other party will be. Let us use Kenya to illustrate the insignificance of our African states in the scheme of things.

Kenya’s GDP in 2010 was US $35Billion while SA, the superpower of Africa was ten times that of Kenya’s at $383 Billion. The UK, on the other hand was US $ 2.472 trillion. But if you want to know that of the US, $ 15.227 trillion. This point also needs no further commentary.

The folly of our thinking. It is amazing how far creative insanity and toxic imagination could drive us from reality.

What about our natural resources? Africa is endowed with gold, diamonds, uranium all of which we have no use for except to sell secretly to unscrupulous corporations who are in every context merchants of death who engineer and exploit conflict between communities and between countries in order to sustain monopoly in the extraction and exploitation of these minerals. Why should Africans continue to die for resources they don’t need. If these African states would just accept to be colonized, the powerful nations would come and invest and negotiate more openly among themselves and there would be no need for war.

As for Kenya, we must choose whether we want to give back to the British or risk the all authoritarian super power. Or we can take the plunge with China, after all, they have something to prove to the Europeans and an ax to grind with the US and this might just work in our favor.

Mr. Raila, while you were away

2011-09-21T05:57:00.000-07:00

Mr. RAO, while you were away, a convoy came to town. Loud music, lingala dancers and a loud voice howling over all the racket beckoning us all to come closer, quite a tumult with surging crowds and all. For a moment, we thought it was you but as it drew nearer we noticed the colors were not Orange. In fact they branded the colors of our national flag. We succumbed to curiosity and moved closer though a little cautious. Suddenly the music stopped and after a brief motionless moment, a sharply dressed young man stepped forward to address the crowd. He was cool and collected, portraying the image of a man on a serious mission. Unusually, there was no greeting. He went straight to the matter.

Ladies and gentlemen, What is the price of unga? Cooking oil? Sugar? Bread? Milk? Electricity? Petrol? Matatu fare? And he went on. To each question the crowd roared the answers in unison as though it was rehearsed. He stopped for a while and then asked, “is life getting better or worse?” Of course I don’t need to tell you how they answered. The man paused for a while and then continued. How many of you know that we got a new constitution? Like a typical scene in a crusade, the crowd raised and waved their hands in the air reflecting the deep hope they have in that document. “How many of you know that devolution is coming?” Fewer hands went up this time but still an overwhelming majority responded exuberantly in the affirmative “How many of you know that the judiciary and the police are going to be reformed?” It wasn’t surprising that even fewer hands went up but this might have been because people were eager for him get to the point.

He changed the thread and now expressed his personal view on the issues that affect our country, the youth in particular and the stressors associated with living in poverty. Crime, joblessness, tribalism, rape and abuse of children, corruption, nepotism, drug abuse, lack of healthcare, lack of resources for small business, inadequate housing, influx of refugees, etc.

He allowed these realities to sink in for a while and then he asked a final time. “How many of you believe that change is coming?” You can guess for yourself; just a half dozen hands went up, betraying that inner consciousness of doubt in the constitution, government, leaders and the whole system and portraying a sense of evident emptiness aware that these are things they will continue to live with for a long time. The smart gentleman took a step backwards and just then, the loud music started again, the dancers moved to the forestage and the convoy slithered away slowly like a demonic snake, leaving in its wake a primal wound, a completely dispirited crowd.

But before the dust could settle, there came another convoy. This one moved quick and rough and had no music. It stopped abruptly and out came a man. His statement was brief and his questions on point. “Everyone has a choice to make” he said. “Either you spend your life waiting for change or you make the change you want. Either you wait to be made the same promises that haven’t been kept in the past by the same liars, thieves and conmen and continue suffering, or you take a little risk today and breakaway from this system that has used, robbed, raped, and then dumped you. How many of you want to get free from these liars, thieves and conmen?” Of course everyone had both hands up. The man concluded with this statement. “To be forewarned is to be forearmed and to be informed is to be empowered. There is a third convoy coming soon. It comes with good news and solutions for today’s problems. You have guessed right. it is Sonkonomics. It is real and it works. It offers real hope for youth. It does not need to be accounted for and it cannot be contained and while some might talk disparagingly against it, it is saving lives. It is more accessible than youth fund and does not vet its clients. It is for people who believe in life before death.”

The man disappeared behind speakers and amplifiers and the convoy sped off quickly like an ambulance.

Some ODM youth not wanting to let what they had heard turn their faith into despair, decided to do some homework to find out more about this Sonkonomics, what it means for youth and how it might shape politics in the future and this is what they discovered.

Sonkonomics is a movement driven by powerful and wealthy and likely, very dangerous people. Their networks permeate all sectors of the economy and their presence covers the entire country. It is difficult to establish exactly how they acquired their wealth but it is colossal and is unlikely to be exhausted in a long time. They have hijacked the scheme one politician invented and used to get to parliament and whose name the movement has adopted. The difference is that they are not ruggedy ruffians, openly breaking the law and making an ass of themselves like that politician. Rather, they are smart individuals who present the image of professionals who we would be happy to have as leaders. They have perfected the use of propaganda and while you are on your charm offensive, they follow your footsteps quietly to undo while others invade ODM strongholds to create confusion about your intentions, the constitution, the counties, elections, etc and exploiting every opportunity to throw a spanner into implementation of the new constitution.

They will invade every joint where young people hang out and in time they will scale the antics used by the real Sonko to buy carwash machines, put up kiosks, use their financial institutions to give youth loans for piki piki boda bodas, and so on. In short, they will enforce the notion that promises are there to be broken but money speaks louder than words. Their mission is one, and only one. Isolate RAO and crush him once and for all.

Mr.RAO, these are tough times for all Kenyans especially youth. Poverty abounds and in many ways the perception that the problems of youth remain largely ignored is fuelling feelings of alienation. Youth are victims of lies and most are not willing to sit back and wait for our leaders to renew the same promises they have not kept in the past.

Mr. RAO, now that you are back, can we talk? Please call me. I will be waiting patiently. But please don’t take too long. Things are not looking very good. Good day

The Informal Sector offers opportunities for employment of youth

2011-08-25T03:25:00.000-07:00

Without renewing the debates about whether entrepreneurial talent is ‘born’ or can be ‘taught and acquired, it is understood that a very low percentage of the general population is actually inclined towards becoming an entrepreneur. So how can we accurately identify and target scarce resources to cost effectively reach, say the most promising.

Although evaluative study of youth entrepreneur development and start-up support programs in Kenya is rare, what little has been done follows international norms; less than 5% of youth who complete these programs actually end up becoming entrepreneurs. Not least, this experience indicates that few youth entrepreneur development and start-up support programs can effectively screen for best candidate potential entrepreneurs. This poses serious strategic and methodological questions that will take some time to answer.

All the same, we must find ways to address the crisis of unemployment among youth. There hasn’t been a shortage of ideas on how to invest in youth focussed enterprise development in Kenya but rather, the problem has been too much emphasis on design and risk control at the expense of trials and applied research. So we end up with programs that are overinnovated and overcomplicated like the Kazi Kwa Vijana (KKV) while all along the Informal Sector has displayed real innovation and creativity.

We are all aware that the sector faces serious challenges such as increased competition, inadequate physical infrastructure and lack of access to credit, etc, but there are more fundamental challenges that have not been fully appreciated and we haven’t even began to address; the main one being the problem of multiple competencies which has resulted in a situation where most operators in the sector are unable to effectively make the connection between what the market needs and what they produce which in effects limits the prospects for value addition. In contrast, this is readily available in the private sector.

As we strive to come to terms with the implications of the new constitution, particularly devolution, we must be assertive and ensure that we do not transpose the weaknesses of the present to the new institutions keeping in mind the key reasons the youth gave the constitution overwhelming approval. We must make every effort to address the following critical issues for which answers have been elusive. The need for:
a)effective screening for best potential young entrepreneurial talent
b)effective entrepreneur grooming strategies, these based on principles of risk reduction and leveraging first hand entrepreneur thinking and behaviour
c)re-conceptualizing the vision of the ‘young entrepreneur’ in ways that reduce risk and offset short run competence limitations
d)identification of strategies that lead to higher value addition and prepare young people to contend with tomorrow’s market conditions; and,
e)balancing the ‘young entrepreneur’ approaches with stronger emphasis on job creation and employment skills preparation.

Zungua Kenya is a youth entrepreneurship and employment program, initiated in 2010 to support young entrepreneurs through mentoring and incubation. Details available at http://outreachkenya.com/zungua/index.html

My Policy Statement

2011-08-25T01:45:00.001-07:00

Policy-makers, both at the national and international level, must be willing to create institutional and economic environments conducive to upgrading the quality of jobs and life in the informal sector. We must emphasize the need to implement economic policies leading to transformation of informal sector activities into more highly productive and socially responsible enterprises that provide protection to workers and their properties

Vision 2030 cannot be realized without the Informal Sector

2011-08-25T01:34:00.000-07:00

The informal sector holds the key to achieving vision 2030 and realizing the much coveted dream of a peaceful, prosperous and more equitable society. In contrast to a growing perception that the sector is a marginal activity at the peripheral of the formal sector, it accounts for 20 percent of GDP and employs 65 percent of the working population in Kenya and it has achieved this with little support. But by continuing to ignore or circumvent the informal sector in resource allocation and strategic development planning, we expose the country to what some analysts have predicted will be a new wave and scale of conflicts emanating from the sector’s inability to continue employing, and the increased competition for seemingly diminishing resources, infrastructure, services and marketplace opportunities.

To forestall this eventuality, there needs to be a large scale government intervention and a massive investment of private capital in development of social and physical infrastructure with the aim of increasing the quality and quantity of engagement with the sector and ensuring that the evolution of the sector happens around grassroots institutions.

Some key areas of focus should be:
i. The development a framework for promoting strong grassroots business organizations as the channels for delivering resource for both service and production oriented activities.
ii. The development of appropriate youth oriented vocational and skills development to unlock idle human and social capital resident in the sector
iii. Identification of the appropriate technology, tools and instruments that can be introduced to increase efficiency and productivity of the sector to enhance competitiveness in the marketplace
iv. The design of appropriate incubation models to address the multiple causes of business failure and consequently reduce the high early stage failure rate of small businesses

PERSPECTIVES OF THE SECTOR
The informal sector is an oxymoron - on one hand it is an unregulated and unorganized sector whose numbers, for example, are not known and whose activities are unaccounted for. On the other, it provides jobs and offers incomes for some of the most vulnerable groups in our country.

The people who make up the informal sector are innovators, skilled at surviving, and in some cases prospering in a highly disorganized environment. Unfortunately, informality is responsible for loss of their full rights as citizens by operating outside the regulated economy.

But the sector does not exist in a vacuum as there is clear interconnectedness, partnerships and continuity with the formal sector, maintaining a two way flow of labor, goods, finances, etc, between the two sectors.

PARADIGMS OF DEVELOPMENT
The development decades of the 60s and 70s first threw up this strategy of 'growth.' Aiming for an economic growth, it was assumed that the benefits of this growth would reach all the sectors of the economy. This did not actually take place. In fact, inter-personal and inter regional disparities began to emerge. The urban informal sector emerged then as an answer or solution to the failure of the 'trickle down' growth strategies.

Since the growth strategies brought about disparities, later, in the 80s, economic and developmental strategies stressed on growth with distribution, or equity. It was assumed that strategies which stressed on equitable distribution of growth would be more appropriate. For various reasons, this distribution again did not take place. In fact, only in the informal sector was there more equitable distribution of income. This was very evident in the way workers in the sector, though thinly spread and inefficient, could distribute work that could be done by one person to several people.

As a result of the failure of the 'growth with equity' strategy to actually generate opportunities for the poor, the focus of development shifted to 'employment generation’ and more recently, in the new millennium, they added wealth creation. Even though this did work to an extent, the formal sector, which these developmental strategies were aimed at, was not able to absorb the multitudes of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled people coming out of our institutions of learning seeking for a piece of the action, The urban informal sector on the other hand, did, mainly for the reason that there are generally no restrictive barriers to entry and that the sector typically uses inefficient and labor intensive processes and technologies.

REGULATION
Regulation is critical in reducing the level of informality, but to achieve any success, it will be prudent to rationalize the role of the regulator in creating conducive conditions for doing business while ensuring that this does not involve subsidies that often distort markets which are typically conditioned by a completely different flavor of intercession.

The informal sector in Kenya is unique in many respects key of which is that as opposed to many most developing countries, entrepreneurs do have some interaction with authorities. Permits are issued by local authorities across the country, albeit, a daily permit. This however does not in any way suggest regulation. Regulation presupposes that a percentage of the proceeds of permits are ploughed back in the form of services, which is hardly the case in Kenya.

With the emergence of Counties, there will be need to establish mechanisms for collecting important data for policy formulation which should focus on supporting the already vibrant sector to thrive while at the same time defining a path to proper regulation

Exploiting Markets in the Informal Sector

2010-03-03T09:38:00.000-08:00

People generally view the informal sector as a marginal activity at the peripheral of the formal sector, a labor reservoir that is basically a potential source of workers to supplement the other sectors. They see its importance in terms of providing job opportunities for the lower income groups whose output is associated with cheap and poor quality subsistence goods.

There are others who see the informal sector not as a problem that needs to be solved but rather as a vast investment destination with huge market potential that needs to be exploited.

These views do not necessarily reflect any conflict of opinion but rather, different stages in the continuum of discovery. People’s experiences shape their thinking about markets and ultimately this is what forms the foundations for their marketing decisions and strategies.

Although most people agree that there is huge market potential, they concede that this population is unpredictable, risky and in some instances unviable for commercial engagement primarily because of the high level of informality associated with the sector.

The question remains, how do we exploit markets in the informal sector?

A basic requirement for unlocking the market potential in the informal sector is an appreciation of how marketing infrastructure inter-phases with established relationship structures that in general determines the quantity and quantity of interaction among people in a selected population.

But this is only foundational as actual penetration is best pursued by applying innovative marketing strategies that blends social and economic empowerment of the target group (through information, advice, linkages, etc) with product promotion that recognizes local cultural context and places the highest value in the participation of the target audience in order to maximize absorption.