Is Immigration The only option for young Kenyans

[Georgesoros]

Open up new frontiers and send the landless there to farm a specific crop like coffee or citrus fruits
 You can do this with 500k households and then invest in agriculture support. 500k new farmers could employee 3 million kenyans

Rapidly urbanized every county location.

Good thing with most Kenyans is they are willing to do anything for a living.

[hk]

The major missing link in kenya development is investment. To create employment there has to be investment, the key is addressing what's hampering investment. And here we mean local investment not the much touted FDIs. Naturally FDI is suppose to supplement local investment, you can market the country all you want but most investors look at whether local investors are investing its the biggest indicator. So long as we have low investment as percentage of GDP https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NI_GDP@AFRREO/SSA/OEXP/OIMP we wont create employment.

[RV Pundit]

Yes but LOCAL investment is cheap capital  which is a function of savings/deposit in banks - which is function of having less dependency - and more money to save - linked to having smaller household (less than 3).

I mean short term - gok can quit borrowing from same pool - and try borrow externally - that might help with banks lending to private sector -  but who can lend to GOk external in KES or cheaply - maybe IMF/WB/ADB - meaning public sector investment suffers - meaning bad roads/etc.

So in short - once you have analyze all these things.

Stopgap
1) FDI - ATTRACT CHEAP CAPITAL from Foreigners who can borrow from home country cheaply. Plentiful of capital in advanced countries.
2) Labour export - Go for PLENTIFUL JOBS in foreign countries.

Long term - meet the conditions for economic take off including smaller families, more working people, etc
Then..
1) Public investment - from Pensions & Insurance funds - for long term projects like SGR/Expressways
2) Private investment - from citizen deposits & saving - for onward cheap lending to enterprenuers.

The major missing link in kenya development is investment. To create employment there has to be investment, the key is addressing what's hampering investment. And here we mean local investment not the much touted FDIs. Naturally FDI is suppose to supplement local investment, you can market the country all you want but most investors look at whether local investors are investing its the biggest indicator. So long as we have low investment as percentage of GDP https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/NI_GDP@AFRREO/SSA/OEXP/OIMP we wont create employment.

[Nefertiti]

Does Kenya have an innovation authority? Or a startup-enabling, FDI-pooling body. Israel, UAE and such aggressive countries have one.

I know there is National ICT Authority, etc but not really focused on VC. Perhaps can be re-purposed. ICT is now an old concept not worthy of a governmental body.

In the end building stuff is tough job. Which makes culture and work ethic equally important. If RV Pundit is afraid to run startup... how about average Otieno?

[Georgesoros]

Does Kenya have an innovation authority? Or a startup-enabling, FDI-pooling body. Israel, UAE and such aggressive countries have one.

I know there is National ICT Authority, etc but not really focused on VC. Perhaps can be re-purposed. ICT is now an old concept not worthy of a governmental body.

In the end building stuff is tough job. Which makes culture and work ethic equally important. If RV Pundit is afraid to run startup... how about average Otieno?

Kibaki is the only one who had a serious ICT dept.
These others may sound like they do but they hire villagers who cant spell ICT

[sema]

To create employment there has to be investment

Who would want to invest in such a corrupt environment and in a country that experiences frequent electricity blackouts? There's a reason Asian countries are attracting so much of the investment.  You have to build the infrastructure first and make an attempt to create a rule of law environment so people know that their investments would be safe.

[Nefertiti]

To create employment there has to be investment

Who would want to invest in such a corrupt environment and in a country that experiences frequent electricity blackouts? There's a reason Asian countries are attracting so much of the investment.  You have to build the infrastructure first and make an attempt to create a rule of law environment so people know that their investments would be safe.

Kenya is better than most countries in Africa. We actually beat SA and Nigeria in startup capital. According to data Kenya led Africa with $800m in 2023. Which of course is a very small figure compared to Asia. Afrika iko shida.

CoK2010 actually leapfrogged rule of law metric with independent judiciary, DPP, etc. Infra has done well since Kibaki - it's the reason for the huge debt. You have enough roads and powerlines. Infra and laws can only go so far. You cannot mandate innovation for instance... there are many moving pieces dependent on daily decision making and policy.

[gout]

Hasoras have already invested serious cash in their hustles. Industrial area is now dead. The government role is to stay away from business by having fewer regulations, papers creating loopholes for corruption.

The police, KRA, KeBS are government arms trained to terrorize hustlers.

Musk captures this perfectly.

https://x.com/AutismCapital/status/1833347271003718107

If this is the start-up magnet of the world where Musk is building a giant rocket faster than papers are moving from one desk to another, you know understand why it is terror for Kenyan hasoras.

[Nefertiti]

Hasoras have already invested serious cash in their hustles. Industrial area is now dead. The government role is to stay away from business by having fewer regulations, papers creating loopholes for corruption.

The police, KRA, KeBS are government arms trained to terrorize hustlers.

Musk captures this perfectly.

https://x.com/AutismCapital/status/1833347271003718107

If this is the start-up magnet of the world where Musk is building a giant rocket faster than papers are moving from one desk to another, you know understand why it is terror for Kenyan hasoras.

 😃 Musk is Trump's cheerleader. He is drumming up the "government efficiency commission" that Trump has promised him.

[Georgesoros]

Hasoras have already invested serious cash in their hustles. Industrial area is now dead. The government role is to stay away from business by having fewer regulations, papers creating loopholes for corruption.

The police, KRA, KeBS are government arms trained to terrorize hustlers.

Musk captures this perfectly.

https://x.com/AutismCapital/status/1833347271003718107

If this is the start-up magnet of the world where Musk is building a giant rocket faster than papers are moving from one desk to another, you know understand why it is terror for Kenyan hasoras.

 😃 Musk is Trump's cheerleader. He is drumming up the "government efficiency commission" that Trump has promised him.

Look at twitter - chaos chaos and more chaos. That will be the standard.

[gout]

These PowerPoint slides and folders by naive Whitman keep singing how the Gen Z are an opportunity for sillyconners while the youngings are saying they are broke/ living dead because of corruption and no respect for the rule of law from the State House to the abductions agents.

Sensible investors worry more about court orders than Gen Z protests asking for accountability. Paris has a vibrant protest culture and is thriving.

Kenya must find a working model. I mean beyond CoK2010 or devolution. And attracting FDI - both business and VC - is a very real option. Cause literally there is no competition in Eastern Africa for Kenya. People sing Ruto this and that - without appreciating the effort he put to create excitement here in Silicon Valley for investment. I mean suddenly the White House spox was getting a folder on Kenya before any presser.. after one year of Ruto. So Ambassador and commercial attaches should be very highly vetted positions in GoK - not filled by political rejects. I think Ambassador should have FDI targets.. like China party official GDP targets.