Category: Business Daily

Africa’s youth have, over the years, been referred to as the continent’s untapped potential. This framing is common in reports and political speeches in Kenya, where 85 percent of the population is below the age of 35.

However, the truth is that young Africans do not stand on the fringes. They are already creating the future, innovating technologies, disrupting industries, and driving social change.

What is now needed is a strong commitment to ensuring that the youth have the environment and resources needed to tap into their power, a commitment that African governments must make now.

So how do we unlock this power?

There are key elements that must be unpacked, no matter how uncomfortable they make us. It is in this discomfort that we can start to actualise Africa’s great future. It is paramount that the trust deficit between citizens in multiple African countries and their governments is addressed first.

We cannot build on a rocky foundation, and the youth, especially, do not trust their governments. This trust will be rebuilt on the delivery of services, on an accountability that honours enquiries from the youth instead of punishing them when they demand a just government.

Governments must start seeing the youth as capable partners in building Africa’s future and solving global problems.

A testament to this is Wawira Njiru. At just 21, she founded Food for Education, which ensures students get access to nutritious meals at school. Their work is efficient and leverages technology, too. She has gone from serving 25 students to serving 500,000 children daily across Kenya. The schools she supports have seen a 27 percent increase in enrolment.

Additionally, national policies must not only incorporate youth insights but must have a tangible impact today. Youth representation in government is key in this and must be harnessed from a young age. A key example that can be borrowed is that of the Liberian Children’s Parliament, now known as the Liberian National Children’s Representative Forum.

This space ensured children across Liberia were not just represented in national governance issues, but got to interact with leadership organs in government. It also gave rise to the youth leaders Africa needs, like the powerful human rights activist Satta Fatumata Sheriff, a dynamic young Liberian changemaker. Satta is making a real-time impact in Liberia today.

Another uncomfortable truth we must face is that we are at the beginning of the end of funding as we’ve known it. African governments must wake up, clamp down on corruption, bridge commercial alliances with each other, and begin to leverage domestic revenue.

Without prioritising this, we will not have the autonomy or sustainability needed to ensure that African youth can realise their potential.

The future of Africa isn’t on a distant horizon; it is unfolding right now. Every day, the youth of this continent are actively creating it. The world must catch up.

Why the world must pay attention

While income gaps in Africa are often discussed, age gaps between leaders and their people present an opportunity to discuss what a brighter African future should look like.

It is against this background that the Future of Africa Podcast, which I have the pleasure of co-hosting, was created. The podcast was developed to amplify African voices participating in global discourses and also align with generational views.

Each episode is a moderated, intergenerational conversation featuring a youthful changemaker alongside an elder statesperson or thought leader, ensuring a true exchange of ideas across generations.

It is a seven-episode series, with each episode bridging local experiences and global policy debates. The most inspirational idea to me is the nature in which the podcast reinvents youth not as passive beneficiaries of development, but as active creators of the future of Africa.

Moving from potential to power

To unlock the youth potential, there is a need to transform education systems to incorporate digital literacy, green economy, and entrepreneurial skills.

Youth-led ventures should also be funded. It is also crucial to provide the youth with a place at the decision table and make their voices heard on the policies that have direct influence on their lives and ambitions.

Governments, investors, and global partners face a crucial challenge: It’s time to move beyond discussing potential and start investing in these empowered individuals.

For years, with its low operating costs and strong profit margins, Joseph Karuga’s beekeeping and honey aggregating venture was a sweet business.

He was a happy entrepreneur. Then, as demand grew, shortages and unreliable supply left him frustrated – until he decided to build the solution himself.

Eight commercial banks raised interest rates in the year to August, placing them on a collision course with the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK), which has threatened daily fines on lenders that deny borrowers lower interest charges.

The overall weighted average lending rates of DIB Bank Kenya, Consolidated Bank of Kenya, Co-operative Bank of Kenya, Kingdom Bank, UBA Kenya Bank, Diamond Trust Bank Kenya, Premier Bank Kenya, and Access Bank Kenya have increased over the past year, according to fresh CBK data.

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few,” said Shunryu Suzuki.

Don’t read this if –you are expert in luxuriating in a warm comfortable bubble bath of sameness.

Why is it that managers are taught to differentiate, yet they don’t? Are you running stuck in the same spot? Can a blue ocean approach capture customers you never knew existed? Is it naïve to think that one just push a button and, AI — part fad, part trend — can replace the hard work of critical thinking? Paradox is, the more companies compete, the more they look the same. When one scratches below the surface of Kenya’s crowded banking, insurance, hotel and hospitality, and professional services sectors, it’s very hard to tell one organisation from another.

With over abundant consumer choices and superfluous apps, upgrades and add-ons and features, brands and product offerings have become nearly identical as the efforts to outdo each other have pushed them into a dizzying herd of indistinct options.

Stuck in the soap opera of season 1, episode 1

Imagine watching a captivating popular drama series, talking about a season 1 episode, when the rest of the world is in season 7.

Why are we continually playing a game of catch up? Can one shift from playing the part of the dumb ‘wanna be’ all knowing make believe expert? Helps to avoid preconceptions when addressing a business issue, similar to how a true beginner would approach things.

Having a beginners mindset allows for more possibilities, creativity, and a deeper understanding — by letting go of what one already knows, being open to new blue ocean perspectives and experiences.

Blue ocean strategy

Want to launch a successful business? Is it possible to avoid wasting time on competing for market share? Ideal is to focus on creating new value, expanding the current market space.

If you can create new value, you will find yourself in a highly profitable ‘Blue Ocean’ where the competition is irrelevant. This is the thinking of W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, first published in their 2005 book: Blue Ocean Strategy.

If two people are sitting by the side of the road selling tomatoes, do you join them as the third tomato seller? That’s the temptation. Competing — thinking that one can be just a little bit different, drop the price slightly, give one away free, offer juicy ripe tomatoes, or sit closer to the matatu stop. That’s the easy conventional thinking, the default programming on how to do business.

Blue ocean strategy asks: How can you create value by addressing the needs, problems that customers face? And, go after ‘non-customers’ that others have not thought of. Market leaders like, for example, Tesla, South West Airlines, Ikea, and Cirque du Soleil all followed a blue ocean approach, attracting customers who the competition could not reach.

Even the money transfer platform, M-Pesa, the financial backbone of the Kenyan economy is an example of a blue ocean style approach. In 2024, 59 percent of the Kenya’s gross domestic product flowed through the phone app in your pocket, that has a 90 percent market share.

Four steps to value innovation

Value innovation is at the core of blue ocean strategy. Aim is to create an innovative new product at a remarkably low price. First step in value innovation is selecting your target audience.

Instead of focusing on ‘regular’ customers within your desired market – the existing customers everyone else is competing for — focus on the customers on the edge of your market. These are the infrequent buyers and customers in adjacent market spaces, who either avoid your shop, or who have never heard of your market.

First step is to have a beginner’s mind and see differently. Focus on the needs, the problems faced by your potential consumers.

Next step in value innovation is to look at the typical business model in your market and ask four questions: 1) What processes can we eliminate? In other words, what adds cost, but really isn’t required? 2) What standards can we reduce? 3) In contrast, what quality benchmarks can be raised? 4) What ways of doing things, in systems and processes, can we incorporate from adjacent sectors – industries to create a new experience? Here one takes best practices that ‘Wow’ customers from outside of the conventional ‘business as usual’ space.

Coming up with a blue ocean strategy is tough. It requires solid facts and figures analysis, and big injection of ‘out of the box’ creative thinking. But the rewards are considerable, if you can create your own market, no one else is in.

The law of hype

Perhaps one should pray your competitors stick with the hype — all the meaningless fluff — with words like: transformation, future ready, AI- enabled and high stakes leadership. Notice that when things are going well, a company doesn’t need the hype. When you need the hype, it usually means you’re in trouble.

‘No one can predict the future, not even a sophisticated reporter for the Wall Street Journal. The only revolutions you can predict are the ones that have already started.

Over the years, the greatest hype has been for those developments that promise to single-handedly change an entire industry. Real revolutions arrive unannounced in the middle of the night and kind of sneak up on you,’ advised Al Ries and Jack Trout.

Avoid the path well trodden, have a beginner’s mind and break some rules.

Harvard Business School professor, Youngme Moon talks about those to watch out for: ‘In field after field, past experiences have taught us, that the ones to pay attention to, are the ones who understand the rules so well that they understand the urgency to break them.’

The reality of energy poverty facing Kenya, just like the rest of the countries in Africa, is with us. The government seems intentional in pushing the realisation of energy sovereignty, as seen in the focus of 2025 Mashujaa Day themed Transforming Lives Through Sustainable Energy Solutions’ in Kitui.

In addition to focusing on improving sector policies, better management, and opening up the sector, the government is making efforts to mobilise resources and investors to grow the industry. Key policy and administrative actions noted that it’s possible to achieve this through reducing the costs of renewable energy technologies, making it the most viable energy source.

Kenya is highly endowed with several energy sources, including geothermal, solar, wind and hydrological sources, which, if harnessed through government policies, private sector investment and private-public partnerships, will end citizens’ struggle to access clean energy.

The energy sector continues to be highly regulated, closed and left to public agencies, and little information, including through the media, is circulated to enhance understanding, regulation and opportunities that would allow other players to invest and create mass demand for energy by citizens. This has been very frustrating for private players/investors.

The government master plan for the energy sector notes that, given its position on the Equator (4.5° South and 5° North), Kenya is endowed with very high solar resources, among the highest 10 of sub-Saharan African countries.

For this reason, the government is keen on the development and use of renewable energy sources, including solar, which are widely available for power generation in Kenya, in addition to being socially, economically and environmentally friendly.

The focus on the energy sector by the government is not an isolated act, for a few years ago, President William Ruto addressed the issue, noting that Kenya is on a transition to 100 percent clean energy by 2030 and affirmed his commitment to the same.

He acknowledged that access to clean and improved cooking solutions as a contribution to Kenyans’ efforts towards adapting to climate change resilience remains a challenge because of financing. Improved cooking technologies also reduce the amount of time women and girls spend collecting fuel, allowing them to pursue education, training and economic activities.

In addition to the fact that high efficiency cooking stoves lead to even larger benefits in time and energy saving, it also contributes to reduction of emissions.

He particularly noted that the clean cooking sector requires urgent attention, because its continued neglect will frustrate the country’s efforts towards dealing with pollution, improved health through decreased disease burden and mitigate adverse effects of climate change.

Among the challenges hindering access to energy in Kenya is the inability to apply new innovations and technological adaptations enhance production and distribution, reluctance by the sector to open to more players, poor marketing and inadequate financial investments.

However, the most overriding challenge to Kenyans realising the benefits in the sector is lack of information on using clean energy, available energy options, health and economic advantages on using clean energy, which limits demand and reliance on single traditional energy source, and limits investment in the sector.

Knowledge and public awareness are critical in the revolution that is needed to deal with energy poverty in the country, as this will create demand, create a market and attract investors in the sector.

Public awareness and access to information on the policies, procedures and opportunities is critical for opening the sector, interesting investors to the sector and allowing reaping the benefits in the sector.

The media is a critical player in this endeavor, and the framing and setting agenda on the sector on eradicating the challenges in the sector.

Availability of information, on specific costs, resource allocations and legislative frameworks through public databases and official websites, media space and related are very vital.

This kind of transparency builds public trust and facilitates foreign and domestic investments by reducing the friction caused by information scarcity.

In most cases the factors limiting access to cleaner and more efficient energy supply are not primarily of a technical/engineering nature – inventing more products will on its own make little difference but public mobilisation, information on advantages that come with use of clean energy, push for enabling policy environment for increased investment among others.

The media has a substantive role to play if Kenyans will solve the challenges in the energy sector. Besides and at basic level, informing and educating people about the nature of the sector is a necessary requisite for participation in the decision-making process on issues affecting the local communities.

For the media to effectively play its public education, agenda setting roles, a more in-depth approach to coverage of the renewable energy sector should be used. This will require that the media changes its framing on adoption of renewable energy as a public interest issue, offer possible solutions to challenges in the sector and help the country focus citizens on use of renewable energy.

It’s desirable that media prioritise critical information and stories on opportunities in the energy sector and inform local communities and the citizenry at large on potential impacts of such activities.

The government has made it clear in several policy statements including in the Vision 2030 that it is committed to ensuring access to clean energy a key priority.

Use of clean cooking technologies will reduce the country’s annual disease burden attributable to Household Air Pollution from 49 per cent (21,560) to 20 percent.

My explanation of the size of the Mt Kenya economy on Radio Generations last week elicited many comments on Tiktok. My point? Perspective drives action.

For all our difficulties, Kenya has immense opportunities. We should not squander them, imprisoned by self-pity, recriminations, and name calling. Rather, leaders should reduce their daily political battles, and inspire Kenyans to greatness.

As long as domestic borrowing continues to expand, monetary adjustments by the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) will remain cosmetic and ineffective.

In Kenya’s current fiscal landscape, the greatest paradox is not simply that the government owes more than it possesses in liquid resources, but that the remedies prescribed to address this imbalance often serve the State more than the people.

When total debt far outpaces cash and cash equivalents, the economy is effectively living on borrowed time, with liquidity shortages constraining the ability of both the government and the private sector to function. According to recent reports, public debt in 2025 has climbed above Sh11 trillion, even as revenue growth remains sluggish and falling short of what is needed to service the debt without sacrificing other obligations.

The Central Bank of Kenya has tried to portray monetary policy as the engine for recovery. Rate cuts, revised loan pricing formulas, and persuasion to commercial banks to reduce lending rates are part of this strategy.

These moves might appear reassuring: in April 2025, the CBK lowered its policy rate by 75 basis points to around 10.00 percent, aiming to stimulate credit growth.

Yet these policy shifts neglect the reality that the state itself remains the chief claimant on domestic capital. When the government continues to issue domestic debt-such as long-term Treasury bonds with coupon rates upward of 13.20 percent to 13.40 percent, and funds being raised at these levels-banks and investors naturally find government securities more attractive and safer than private sector loans.

Private sector credit tells the more concerning side of the story. By December 2024, credit to the private sector stood at Sh3.86 trillion, but growth was negative in Q4, with a 1.4 percent year-on-year decline-even as households, the trade and manufacturing sectors remain important borrowers.

Households took about Sh1,317.4 billion (34.1 percent of private credit), while trade and manufacturing took 16.9 percent and 15.0 percent, respectively.

These figures suggest that demand remains, but the supply of credit is choked-banks are reticent to lend to riskier private actors when government securities provide relatively high, risk-free returns.

In addition, Treasury bill yields, and bond coupon levels remain high, reinforcing what is already obvious: the state is crowding out the private sector.

The result is a vicious cycle where private investment is starved, households and businesses remain credit-constrained, and growth slows. Inflation and borrowing costs remain elevated.

With each round of short-term domestic borrowing, rollover risk increases. The state’s solvency becomes the central concern, not inclusive growth.

Kenya’s path out of this quagmire requires much more than lower rates. Structural reforms are necessary: debt issuance must shift toward long dated, concessional financing; incentives and guarantees need to encourage banks to lend to SMEs and productive sectors; fiscal discipline must be strengthened; and transparency in debt, cash holdings, and liquidity management must improve so that policy signals are credible.

The CBK, as monetary custodian, must act not as the Treasury’s enabler but as a guardian of an inclusive financial system. Unless domestic borrowing is contained, unless the incentives change, CBK’s well-intentioned adjustments will remain cosmetic and ineffective. And unless monetary policy is not aligned with fiscal policy, anything else is a mirage.

Investors demand yields for government securities in double digits, especially for long-term bonds. These attractive rates make lending to government very appealing, while loans to households or small businesses offer less return for more risk. Hence, even though the policy rate is lowered, the transmission to private lending rates is weak.

The high yields on government paper effectively provide a safe harbor for liquidity that might otherwise flow to more productive but riskier private investments.

The logic of cuts in rates or adjustments to pricing formulas assumes that banks will reorient their balance sheets toward growth-oriented lending. But when the state is issuing large volumes of debt-bills and bonds-and offering high rates on government paper, that assumption fails.

Banks are profit-seeking entities; for them, holding government securities is often the lower-risk, higher-return path. Private sector lending suffers not just because of risk or demand but because supply of credit is diverted toward sovereign debt.

This dynamic reveals the deeper contradiction: CBK’s monetary adjustments are less about empowering private growth and more about easing the government’s debt servicing burden.

Debt service is elevated, liquidity margins are thin, and the government depends heavily on domestic borrowing to meet recurrent expenses. Under these conditions, rate cuts and loan formula tweaks are at best marginal relief at worst promotional rhetoric.

Shares at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) rewarded investors with the highest returns in the third quarter of the year, eclipsing bonds and cash deposits whose gains dropped in the wake of falling interest rates.

During the three months to September, investor wealth at the bourse, as measured by market capitalisation, rose by 15.1 percent, or Sh367.4 billion, to reach Sh2.78 trillion.

The Employment and Labour Relations Court has faulted Consolidated Bank of Kenya for the unfair dismissal of one of its business development officers over allegations of improper loan approvals totalling Sh102 million.

Justice Monica Mbaru stated that it was improper for the bank to hold Emmanuel Wambua responsible for a non-verified asset used to secure the debt, noting further inconsistencies in the lender’s actions.

Early last month, Karen Thaba, a digital marketer, was approached by an agency to apply for a social media role and content creator. After she shared, the agency wrote back asking for a full social media strategy plus a two-week content creator calendar in 36 hours for a specific brand as an assignment.

“I checked the brand they requested I make the content for and noticed they could be their client,” she recalls.