speech during the closing session of the ges 2015 kenya

REPUBLIC OF KENYA

SPEECH DELIVERED BY MS ANNE WAIGURU, OGW, CABINET SECRETARY

MINISTRY OF DEVOLUTION AND PLANNING DURING CLOSING SESSION THE

GLOBAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP SUMMIT AT UNITED NATIONS GIGIRI

COMPLEX ON SUNDAY 26TH JULY 2015.

Your Excellency, Hon. Uhuru Kenyatta C.G.H President of the Republic of

Kenya and Commander In Chief of the Defence Forces

Colleagues,

Investors,

Entrepreneurs,

UN representatives present,

All Representatives of various Organizations,

Facilitators and Resource Persons,

Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen.

It is with great pride that I take this opportunity to welcome all of you to Kenya, during

this great occasion of the 6th Global Entrepreneurship Summit, the first ever to be held

in Sub-Saharan Africa. As the Summit deliberations have shown, only YOU as

entrepreneurs know the depths and breadths of what it truly takes to spawn a business

idea and go beyond and convert it into a thriving business capable of generating

incomes and jobs to many- far and beyond yourselves. Only YOU have the natural

acumen to instinctively censor and seize a business opportunity and give it what it takes

to succeed. Our world today continues to depend and crave for your skills. Without

entrepreneurs, economies will flounder and fizzle out.

Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter once said, "Make every detail perfect and limit

the number of details to perfect. These words, in many ways, espouse the

conversations that have happened at this Forum. I have followed the great discussions

that have taken place since Friday and must observe that this summit is indeed a major

opportunity to share our experiences and identify suitable options for promoting

entrepreneurship opportunities for all our people.

Given the foregoing, Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish to commend His Excellency the

President of the United States of America as our prime Visitor and convener of this

Summit and His Excellency The President of the Republic of Kenya as the host for this

Summit for their unreserved elevation of entrepreneurship to the forefront of their

individual country administrations as well as global mandates aimed at building an

engagement agenda. Hosting this Summit goes a long way to indeed affirm Kenyas

prevailing status as a hub for innovation and entrepreneurship and as a middle income

country poised for economic take-off.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Despite the global economic slow-down, economic growth in Sub-Saharan Africa and

the East African Community (EAC) has remained relatively robust with expanding GDP

that is bolstered by increase in trade and investment with emerging market economies.

Africas rise is real, with economies that are growing faster than any other in the world.

This is evidenced by the fact that more than 50% of the continent registers a GDP

growth of more than 5% annually! African economies are growing 13% faster than any

other economies in the world, and this trend is projected to continue. According to the

Africa Development Bank, the natural wealth of our continent is projected to earn USD

30Billion per annum. This progress has not gone unnoticed. Ernest & Young reports

that 67% of all globally competitive companies have established investment strategies

for Africa. Clearly, Africa is rising, and Kenya is rising with it.

Kenyas economy, has been tapped by Bloomberg as the 3rd fastest growing economy

in the world! Kenya is also ranked as one of the 7 best countries for investments; the

second biggest market for retail investors; with the best cargo airline in Africa; and the

3rd best airport in Africa. Nairobi too is ranked one of the 21 Smart cities in the world

and the 7th most intelligent city in Africa; and we boast the best think tank, KIPPRA, in

Africa. The list goes on and on. In recent years Kenya has become home to a booming

startup scene as entrepreneurs capitalize on largely untapped opportunities, markets

and a growing middle class.

This success is driven, by a deep hunger, in every Kenyans soul to succeed. From the

multi-million enterprise built from a single idea, to the hawker on the streets, there is

an ingenuity and internal drive that keeps Kenyans going.


We are all aware, that this is often not the story we hear on Africa, we have often

heard a story of poverty, war and famine. But those who are keen are alert to the fact

that Africa is indeed emerging as the frontier, of global economic expansion. While we

acknowledge that indeed there are challenges, we know that challenges are not the full

story. One of my favorite authors Chimamanda Adichie, so eloquently takes us on a

journey of retelling our stories, in her books (The Half of a Yellow Sun; Purple Hibiscus;

The Thing Around Your Neck and Americanah) she retells the story of living through the

Biafran war in Nigeria; or describes the daily life of African immigrants to the US

amongst other stories. She shows us that how the story is told, not only influences our

belief of history, but also impacts on our perspectives of the future.

In her now widely syndicated TED talk series The danger of a single story, she

describes this even more aptly, The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem

with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make

one story become the only story. She further contends that the danger of a single

story is that it robs people of their dignity, and flattens their reality.

I am glad that as entrepreneurs, you are interested in a story of opportunities.

Opportunities in their very nature are multi-dimensional in character, they present in

different forms, and at different times. Entrepreneurs can therefore never be trapped in

a single story. I believe that this Summit, has helped shape some of the stories that will

be retold not only about Kenya, but about Africa as the emerging frontier of global

economic development.


I am pleased to note that the first day of the GES, brought together over 300 youth and

women, to discuss Becoming Investor Ready,. The question of empowering women

and youth, is central in defining our economic development pathway. From that

discussion, it emerged, that the issues of funding, mentorship, markets and training are

critical for empowering the new generation of entrepreneurs.

In their book, the Start-up Nation: The Story of Israels Economic Miracle, Senor and

Singer look at what factors have led Israel to produce more start-ups than countries like

Japan, China or UK, and a higher start-up per capita than anywhere in the world. They

make a compelling argument that it has nothing to do with the predominant view of

ethnic or religious exceptionalism; dismissing 'unitary Jewishness' or even individual

talent as major reasons for Israel's high-tech success. They however analyze two

major factors that in their view are the most important. First the mandatory military

service for all citizens; and second, immigration. At the base of these two factors are

more general prevailing reasons: Networks based on trust; hard work and discipline; a

drive for greater efficiency; learning and applying new lessons; and an appetite for risk.

Forums such as these, are not only useful for sharing lessons, but are also vital in

developing networks, that can germinate into partnerships for mutual benefit. Building

business networks that support women and youth led enterprises, will expose them to

best practices, share lessons and expand market opportunities. Networks could be

horizontal and thus valuable in terms of building scale economies for similar enterprises

or integration across value chains; but could also be vertical and thus acting as

mentorship opportunities. I hope the interactions here over the past 3 days, have

provided these opportunities.

The other critical ingredients for generating successful enterprises, all have to do with

hard work and attitude. Its that ferocious drive that made a young accountant from a

small town called Muranga in rural Kenya, who against all odds took a small

nondescript building society that was technically insolvent in 1993 and built it into the

largest bank in Africa by customer numbers (8.4million clients) Dr. James Mwangi, now

inspires people all over the world with his story on how he built Equity Bank. It is that

ferocious drive that makes young Kenyans wake up early in the bitterly morning cold of

high altitudes of Iten to run tens of kilometers every day, and go into the global scene

and bring home gold medals from almost every marathon in the world. It is that drive

that has driven the development of ideas like MPESA, which is a global first that has

revolutionized how people transact in money.

Attitude is everything they say. Calculated risk, is necessary to grow entrepreneurship.

It is the role of policy, to ensure that we create an environment that will support

entrepreneurs to step out and take risks, by creating an enabling environment with an

ease for doing business as well as supporting vulnerable enterprises by addressing

market failures that undermine their growth and sustainability.


Governments biggest mandate therefore, is creating an enabling environment for

business to thrive, and addressing the distributional inefficiencies brought about by

market failure, in addressing the vulnerable segments of our population, particularly

women and youth. Supporting women and youth empowerment through

entrepreneurship is therefore a critical developmental imperative. Empirical research

reveals that when we address the challenges and opportunities for expanding women

and youth owned enterprises, it reduces the likelihood of household poverty. It is a

known fact, that resources in womens hands have a range of positive outcomes for

human capital and capabilities within the household. Such findings suggest a strong

instrumental rationale for ensuring womens participation in processes of growth.

Womens access to economic resources improves distributional dynamics within the

household. With a predominantly, youthful population, any development programme

cannot be successful if it does not cater for the youth.


What this means is that there is no linear path to enterprise development. Research

and profiling as well as active engagement with intended target groups are all critical to

enterprise promotion policies and programmes. As a Government, Kenya has adopted

enterprise development as a major policy agenda towards job creation. The creation of

productive, decent and sustainable livelihoods for young people and our women is a

major objective both in the public and private sector. To achieve this goal, the

Government is taking various key measures to boost enterprise especially amongst the

youth and women.


Deepening financial access has been identified as a key factor towards promoting

enterprise development. It is for this reason that the Government has focused on

providing affordable credit to women and youth owned enterprises that are largely not

covered by commercial financing options. For youth and women, to feel confident in

taking the bold step of risk, they need facilitation that will cover them in doing so.

Towards this end, the government has created various financing vehicles including the

Youth Enterprise Development Fund (USD 127Million disbursed), The Womens

Enterprise Fund (USD 66Million disbursed), and the more recently launched UWEZO

fund (USD 64Million disbursed). These funds have not only made capital accessible to

women and youth owned enterprises, but also extended free business training to them.

A total of USD257 Million has been disbursed through these funds.


Our lesson over the years has indicated to us, that providing access to credit and

financing, though critical is not sufficient, for spurring entrepreneurial development. A

missing link, is the provision of access to markets and opportunities for trade. This has

been a central theme in the bilateral discussions between Kenya and the United States

government. As much as this is important in national economic development, it is also

important for small scale entrepreneurs at home. It is for this reason, that the

Government of Kenya in 2013, passed the Public Procurement and Disposal Act

(preference and reservations) (Amendments) Regulation, that sets aside 30% of the

entire public service spend for enterprises owned by women, youth and persons with

disability. This translates to an equivalent of USD2.2 Billion worth of business. So far,

contracts worth USD210 million have been awarded to about 8, 000 companies owned

by youth, women and persons with disabilities. Further, over 55,000 companies have

been certified to benefit from the scheme. This has been acclaimed as a one of its kind

initiative even by the UN.

To further support this programme, the government through the existing Funds above

is providing LPO financing that will support these category of businesses in servicing

their contracts. We are also partnering with the private sector, specifically banks, to see

to it that the modalities for LPO financing can be more facilitative. To further enhance

the skills and knowledge for public procurement, we will soon be rolling out a

comprehensive public education programme aimed at training and sensitizing the

general public on how to undertake public procurement, and the various facilitation

programmes available. Further in recognition of the steps that the government has

taken, the Commonwealth Business Women is setting up in Nairobi, a regional centre

for excellence in procurement that will train women entrepreneurs in certified

procurement courses in conjunction with the Certified Institute of Procurement and

Supplies. Partnerships such as these will go a long way in further facilitating women

and youth entrepreneurship.

Encouraging the participation of the young people and women in public procurement is

an investment in their capabilities as future business leaders and is creating a new

entrepreneurial class. Those who access these opportunities have been able to create

temporary formal and semi-formal jobs for their peers and acquired valuable

experience. Over time, these opportunities are likely to crystalize into formal more

sustainable jobs.


The human resource capital is the other most critical ingredient for enterprise

development. Businesses cant thrive where there are no people with the skills, work

ethic and commitment to do what needs to be done. Over the recent months, we have

launched an ambitious re-engineering of our National Youth Service in order to create a

pool of technical, disciplined and organised human resource. Guided by a 5-Point Vision

the NYS has catalysed the transformation of youth empowerment in Kenya. The

programme entails recruitment of 21,870 youths per year who in turn disciple 227, 670

youths per year. The 227,670 youths serve the nation for between 4 to 6 months as

paid labour alongside the 21,870 regimented and trained NYS youths thereby gaining

on-the-job experience in the various works they undertake. The skills gained range

from dam construction, road construction to modern agriculture, artistry and civil works

(just to name a few). These youth receive continuous work place training

(apprenticeship) and support towards improvement of their livelihoods thus increasing

their future prospects. The service has also expanded its technical training programmes

and re-calibrated them to current industry standards and practices. The service is now

able to train for various fields including oil and gas which is an emerging sector in

Kenya and the region. Success in the above interventions are based on models in

countries that have managed their unemployment levels to record single-digit rates

such as Germany, Australia, Switzterland and China. Apprenticeship training models are

advantageous as they ensure that skills and business acumen gained are automatically

aligned with the demands and supplies of a dynamic and hence rapidly changing society

in terms of tastes and preferences.

Through the re-visioned and rebranded National Youth Service, The Kenyan

Government has established an efficient way of engaging a huge labour force, empower

them economically and delivering critical development projects to the people better,

faster and cheaper. The programme has made it possible for government to deal with

the social economic challenge of a youth bulge coupled with tapping into an expanded

talent pool. The programme has, in addition to enhanced incomes, also registered

impact in reducing crime by upto 70% in some urban areas where the project is being

implemented.

But perhaps one of the most significant aspects of the Youth Empowerment

Programme, which commenced mid-September 2014 is the Savings Schemes in

registered Cooperatives as a component of the strategy. The youth save 30% of their

wages and deposit these savings in their various SACCO accounts. In addition to

bonding the youth and creating an accountability chain amongst peers, the savings

provide a sustainability aspect enabling the groups to carry on with enterprise and

income generating activities upon the exit of Government from their areas. So far we

have 30,000 youth recruited in the NYS, and an additional 80,000 young Kenyans

engaged as community youth from some of the poorest parts of the country, who were

previously unemployed, and who have so far managed to save USD5.5Million in just

about 8 months. The scale effect of this money has real potential in transforming the

lives of these youth, and building a new entrepreneurial class. What we have is a

sustainable model where we stimulate mass employment and then retaining these jobs

by facilitating self-employment through enterprise development.

Most importantly and a fact for which we are most proud, investors like some of you

here, can be assured of the existence of not just a skilled, competent and youthful

workforce but also one that is disciplined and exercises the highest standards of work

ethic, commitment to duty and service. You may also take pleasant note that Kenyas

youth population is slowly being re-socialized to adhere to higher ideals of patriotism,

humanism and humanitarianism creating a stable environment for business.


There is one undeniable fact of enterprise development. That it cannot thrive where the

bureaucracy is jammed up in red tape and numerous procedures and multiple points of

approval and licensing. It is for this very reason that this government embarked on a

journey to radically transform the face of public service delivery into an efficient and

effective service. In achievement of this objective, the Government has focused on

improving the public service experience of citizens by providing high quality services

comparable to international standards. The Huduma Kenya Service Delivery Program,

which was launched in November 2013 is a Flagship Project in the Second Medium

Term Plan of the Kenya Vision 2030.

The Huduma Kenya Program has adopted an Integrated Service Delivery (ISD)

approach where various government services and information are provided to citizens in

a one-stop-shop environment. Secondly, the program focuses on providing multiple

easily and readily available channels of service delivery to meet the needs of different

customers/clients. There are now five such channels the program is focusing on;

Physical Onestop shop Huduma (Service) Centres which provide a variety of services

to customers from a single location; Online e-Huduma portal which will provide

integrated government services through the web; Mobile phone m-Huduma platform

which will offer M-government services to citizens from the convenience of their mobile

phones; Huduma Call centre which responds to customer inquiries on government

services 24 hours a day, 365 days a year; and finally a unified and integrated multi-

channel Huduma Payment Gateway which will facilitate ease of payment for

government services. Doing business in Kenya has never been easier.

So significant are the achievements of the Huduma Kenya Programme, that it has won

the 1st position award on public service innovation in Africa; 1st position award in the

United Nations Public Service Award in the category of Improving Service Delivery; and

various other awards by independent agencies in Kenya. The government is committed

to improving the business environment, by addressing the ease of doing business.


Finally, I wish to observe that our success as entrepreneurs, business leaders and

Government officials will measured by the extent to which our people have been able to

embrace entrepreneurship and effectively identified and exploited opportunities

available to them; and eventually the extent to which they have been economically

empowered.

I have to reiterate here that enterprise development is a cross- sectorial challenge, a

challenge that calls for all partners in Government as well as the private sector and non-

state actors to be involved.

Forums such as the GES therefore become critical in helping us to put our minds

together and share our ideas, experiences and plans. My sincere thanks go to all

individuals, organisations and countries that have supported this meeting both

materially and in kind. We are immensely grateful for the opportunity to host you. Let

us continue working together.

Now that the GES is over, we hope that you will take the opportunity to visit the

beautiful sites, and savor the exotic experience that Kenya has to offer. Enjoy this

beautiful country, and make it your preferred travel destination in the future.

I THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

speech during the closing session of the ges 2015 kenya

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