You favour uniformity in dealing with 17M poor adults - or in fact all the 50m kenyans. You think fixing the macro-economics (low taxes, low interest rate, low inflation, low budget deficit, ) will trickle down to everyone.
I favour basic infrastructure for everyone (electricity, water, roads, sewage, railway) - and then sector by sector direct intervention.
Sector by sector...
25m in school - need free primary, free secondary (remove boarding - expensive & unnecessary compoment), and subsidize university+college - with reforms to expand HELB loan and coverage.
The 2 million extremely poor in drought stricken north, the disabled, the elderly and orphaned - we continue with social safety net. Raila half though ideas to expand this to 6k and increase coverage will bankrupt the country and is nonsense not worth of a response.
The 3-4 million in formal employment really deserve cheap housing and solution to traffic jam (for those in Nairobi) - about 2.5m in formal private sector and 1m in gov and related agencies. If they have any other issues - let them address them through unions and such channels. What gov need to do is ensure those 4 million people are financed for very cheap mortagage like use to happen in Moi era - where a gov driver could buy a house in Nyayo estate- and pay tenant-purchasing agreement.
The 3-4 million middle and upper class kenyans represent 4 million cheap gov funded housing market - that will reduce the informality of housing sector - with only 16K mortagages - and houses being built everywhere in Kayole/Zimmerman style that is not conducive to raise families and is slumification of Nairobi and other cities. Housing maths has been done...Uhuru has failed the implementation. It just need Ruto to implement it...flood Chinese contractors and investors. Pass the housing Levy fund. Ensure the mortage refinancing is working.
Dealing with mass housing - will also freeing lots of money in that sector by Kayole Slumscrapper investors to be invested in productive sector of the economy. Slumscrapper investor will not be able to compete with Chinese and gov backed housing...they will look elsewhere into commercial farming, manufacturing and trading.
Now we get to the bottom - the Hustlers. This about 17M adult able Kenyans.1) One group are farmers - mostly small holder - Kenya has about 7 million farmers - this largest component.
2) The other group are non-farming SMES hustlers - small time informal traders in all secondary and tertiary sectors - food, accommodation, transport and manufacturing.
3) The last group is those employed informally - Watu wa Mjengo/Maids/ name them - they are not doing business - they are informally employed.
1) Small holder Farming is easy. They are proven models that work like ONE ACRE FUND. KTDA is a proven model that works. Dairy cooperative are working. Coffee sub-sector is blot on cooperative movement.
Bottom line farming is easy - Quality inputs +good husbandry. Quality input cost money that poor smallholder farmers dont have - so we need to invest in subsidizing quality inputs or providing them with cheap loans (one acre fund) - but ultimately like KTDA has shown farmers have to be organized so they can benefits from economies of scale - KTDA can negotiate favourable terms because they place large orders for inputs.
The worst enemy of small holder farming is further fragmentation - both of land - and their farming operations.
2) Hustlers - Non-farming informal SMES. This MOST difficult group to deal with.
3) Informally employed - Gov public investment in large infrastracture, kazi mtaani type, and manufacturing incentives can deal with this group. Gov can only create jobs for this group by investing more - and also having thriving private sector that invest - without investment (mean bigger budgets) - they are dead. Gov continue investment in basic infrastructure plus bring in chinese to invest in mass housing plus slumscrappers investor investing in factories - instead of new Kayoles - will comfortably employ these 2 million people - and even as high as 4 million in five years - FORMALLY. Chinese investor building 100,000 units - can keep Mjengo guy who works today and doesnt tomorrow as Kamau Slumscrapper fundi - will be assured of work for a long time with Chinese.
I believe you're interested in ideas of dealing with Hustlers - Non-Farming business - informal SMES. This group has previously been shown to do as good as those formally employed if they have the same education standards. So it not a very hopeless group. What they need is recognition and formalization without taxation/levies/regulation. They also need a capital injection that is subsidized below the market rate. They need peace to operate in urban areas without threat of eviction - gov has to work with them to ensure they are selling without compromising hygiene/order/etc.
For me before money - they need to be organized into saccos - Matatu sector madness ended with it - now we need to do the same for all of them - boda bodas, hawkers, shop keepers, mama mbogas, salon owners, mechanics. No sacco - no right to operate informally. If you want to be a mechanic - you should belong to a mechanic sacco. Then gov can come and assit you build a temporary or permenant shed for working.
Gov should issue assistance to only saccos, it should decriminalize only if saccos will take care of order, it should allow traders to build temporary good stalls - without threat of random eviction. Hawkers should hawk if they have uniform and belong to Saccos..saccos officials should work with city hall to ensure there is law and order.
In Uganda all the street or highways hawkers have uniform - different uniform for different towns - we need to do the same. They should have aprons of certain colour with their details printed out.
Hustlers harassment could end tomorrow and hustlers would still be mired in economic stagnation. Kenyans are borrowing 1.2b a day from Fuliza at 120% annual rate. This as a result of government crowding out business in the credit market. CRB listing was suspended after heavy government lobbing by nyamakima/ kirinyaga rd. hustlers via sabina chege, this is macro. Cost of goods has gone up due to increase in taxes from vat in fuel to excise duty on almost everything. This is what's affecting hustlers to a greater extent than lack of "dignity from the top".