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.

The “sambaza” product was launched during this time while local financial institutions provided “equitable” solutions and put more cash in the hands of the ordinary Kenya.

Could there be a connection between the ability to transfer airtime credit, which translates into more talk time for two separate individuals to arrange for a time and place to meet, which ultimately leads to growth in population building activities?

Financial independence

Could there be a connection between the ability to have easy access to financial credit provided by local financial institutions, which translates into financial independence for those that invest loan proceeds in income generating activities that lead to higher personal self-esteem which ultimately leads to growth in population building activities?

The message is quite simple:

A government that has created the economic environment enabling telecoms companies to empower Kenyans to communicate more or financial institutions to provide Kenyans with funds is potentially a catalytic driver for population growth.

The lesson for the business community: good governments provide good stimuli for economic growth leading, of course, to a massive potential growth of your target market!

Facts aside, the amount of information collected by the census enumerators is nothing to sniff at. They have done a superb job.

Being able to know how many cows, pigs, goats and other livestock exist per region may mean nothing to Joe Blow sitting on the corner of Moi Avenue Nairobi, but means a lot to an animal feeds producer or veterinary medicine supplier in determining the best markets to target and product distribution channels to use.

Data such as the fact that 74.1 per cent of rural households and 62.5 per cent of our urban households use pit latrines is nothing short of amazing in 21st century .

Ideally, we should all be poring over the census data with a microscopic eye.

Somewhere within that voluminous data are business opportunities, customer segments that have been identified and product scarcities that have been clearly defined.

The data provides us with trends in population movement over the last 10 years which the savvy amongst us can extrapolate to the next 10 years.

With the coming devolution of government, this presents ample opportunities for urban folk to reverse migrate to the rural areas and begin to accumulate and consolidate small parcels of farming land that are significantly underpriced.

These urban folks can become large-scale food producers.

Read the census report. Massive potential exists.

Carol.musyoka@bungani.com