What population figures mean to eager investors

Many years ago two salesmen were sent by a British shoe manufacturer to Africa to investigate and report back on market potential.

The first salesman reported back, “There is no potential here —nobody wears shoes.” The second salesman reported back, “There is massive potential here—nobody wears shoes.”

So our census results are finally out a year later. While the data will provide enormous granularity to central and local governments that is required in planning for our future economic and social growth, these are a few key findings that the census results, in my humblest opinion, mean for all of us Kenyans.

Census fact number one: 16.6 million or 43 per cent of the population is aged 0-14 years, with about eight million or 20 per cent of the population aged between 15 to 24 years of age. In total, we have about 63 per cent of our population below the age of 24 years. We are a country made up of young people, the so called “youth bulge”.

I really don’t know what all the fuss is about this being a problem since, for people in my age category—which remains undefined—it gives us significant personal comfort that the pension system will remain supremely healthy when it is time .

There will be plenty more people behind us still contributing to the pension system and unless the fund managers make horrific mistakes, our nest eggs are simply going to keep growing even when we stop contributing.

So youth bulge…what problem, from my perspective it reflects nothing, but massive potential.

Census fact number two: Churches rule. With the Christian population at 27.3 million or about 71 per cent of the population, Protestants make up 18.3 million or about 47 per cent of the populace while Catholics make up 23 per cent of the population with a little over nine million members.

Where is the business context in all of this?

Massive potential exists in the “don’t know or simply don’t care” category with almost a million Kenyans who subscribe to atheist beliefs or who just don’t know which religion they are affiliated to.

Stop the sermons in your pulpits you pastors and priests, go out and conquer these souls, these potential contributors to church coffers, these free spirits who need to be pinned down every Sunday.

And while you are at it, you might want to try and have a quiet word with the other 635,352 traditionalists as well, there is massive potential with all the competition to attract church contributions… oops, I meant to say church congregations.

Census fact number three: The NARC administration will go down in history as the administration that provided the catalytic environment for birth explosion. More than 5.9 million children were born in the past four years between 2006 and 2009. Let’s round off that figure. Six million children were born in the last four years while 10 million in 10 years.

Essentially, the NARC administration is responsible for 60 per cent of the population growth in the last 10 years. You could put it another way.

This is the same period in which we have seen exponential growth and innovation in both the telecoms and the financial sectors of the economy.