Kenya

"Linking Juakali sector(informal sector) to External Trade"

The Expanded Opportunities Unit is pleased has been working with the Asian Foundation to link the juakali sector to trade opportunities globally.Kenya does have a serious problem of unemployment, with lO% percent of labor market participants unemployed in 2005-06.The more serious problem is that a majority of Kenyans in the workforce are employed-in most cases working more than 40 hours per week-and still living at or near the official poverty line. Most Kenyans are employed under the informal sector so called Juakali sector. It is likely that average income levels for the agricultural self-employed are at or below the average income level of the 35 percent of working Kenyans employed in the informal sector.

BOOK ON TARGETED EMPLOYMENT LAUNCHED

The Expanded Opportunities Unit is pleased to inform you that at long last the book 'An Employment-Targeted Economic Program for Kenya' is available to all.This book was published through a project by International Poverty Centre, Brasilia.

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Click here to read the book.

Overview on Kenyan Household Enterprises
TThe purpose of this study, as we have emphasized throughout, is to outline a workable set of policies for greatly expanding decent employment opportunities in Kenya. Promoting decent employment is the single most effective tool for Kenya to achieve the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals for poverty reduction and, more generally, to spread prosperity in Kenya widely. The study ranges over a large number of topics and proposals. It is therefore especially important to see how these various proposals come together to advance this basic end of expanding decent employment.

The single most important need in Kenya therefore is to raise income levels for those who are working. This can be done through several channels. The ones on which we focus on this study are:

Increasing the number of available formal sector jobs;
Raising productivity levels for existing areas of employment, in agriculture as well as both the informal and formal sectors. The main channel for achieving higher productivity is to increase the levels of both public and private investment;
Expanding the size of the domestic and foreign markets for goods and services produced by Kenyans;
Improving access to both domestic and foreign markets, for large-scale and small businesses; and
Maintaining decent labor standards as well as cooperation arrangements between business and labor through institutions to deal with issues such as inflation control and the costs of regulation.

A summary of the main goals are:

1. Increasing number of formal sector jobs
2. Raising productivity in agriculture, informal and formal sectors
3. Increase levels of public and private investment
4. Expanding size of domestic and foreign markets
5. Maintaining decent labor standards and cooperative business/labor arrangements
Vehicle for addressing inflation control and costs of regulation.

Expanding access to affordable credit

6. Expand government investments in roads and water infrastructure Ksh 50 billion/year beyond current commitments
7. Raises productivity and 350,000 formal sector jobs
8.Supporting access to markets-agricultural small holders and household enterprises
9. Improving government extension services
10. Marketing cooperatives
11. Expansion of grain storage facilities
12. Building alliances between commercial banks and microcredit enterprises
13. Loans from commercial banks to microcredit enterprises subsidized by up to 75 percent of principal
14. Create large-scale program; roughly 25% of all investment in country
15. Assume 30% default rate, No more than Ksh 9 billion-5% of national budget