You are a techie that likes shiny things like Apple. Kenya has to grow the actual apples before it can build a phone. You can't climb development tree from top. Maslow hierarchy of needs first
Nope. Opportunity is a constant but very dynamic. In the 70s agric could lift a society due to low competition. Then commodities - oil, steel, minerals. Then manufacturing. Now we are onto services. The field is more level than in the past - with global market, platforms, talent, capital, etc.
Having missed out on past opportunities - it's pointless to bet on low value agric as a growth driver. Do it but don't solely bet on it. I advocate rural murram and largescale farming - which needs alot of business and commercial setups. Peasantry cannot even support the nuclear family anymore.
Manufacturing as the definite leapfrog is gone. Cause automation. No more mass employment.
The best success factor in the offing is the demographic dividend. Which needs an environment - of tertiary skills and such - capital is global. Infra is not - you must build it - it can't be imported. It's also mostly a public affair cause there is no private infra. So you see it's preferable for GoK to build than worry so much about the credit market. What you need is to refactor the debt. Recalibrate the infra strategy. SGR is sub-optimal timing because am for city subway as first priority. But intercity rail will become handy in a relatively short time. SGR is merely sub-optimal in timing - not plain wrong.
I disagree with last-miles because, although manufacturing is not the ideal focus now - development invariably means urbanization. Unlike SGR this is more potentially a waste. Housing will take care of itself. As for universal health GoK should definitely nick it.
Show us an opportunity better than demographic dividend - a real potential windfall - and a better way to milk it - than what Kibaki and Uhuru have done.
