Kenya's industrial policy is a masterpiece and bears resemblance with the best of them.
The policy has grand plans such as import substitution, export-led growth, complete with export processing zones (EPZs), and encouraging labour-intensive light-industries where the country enjoys comparative advantage.
It seeks to position ‘Made in Kenya' as a global brand and grow manufacturing's contribution to GDP to 15 percent. To reinvigorate manufacturing, however, Kenya must first unlearn and then learn. We must rid our policy instrument of the physiocracy and mercantilism mentality.
Physiocracy, an economic theory that originated in France in the 18th century, holds that agriculture is the primary source of a nation's wealth.
Mercantilism, which emphasises government intervention to regulate international trade and protect domestic industries, has little chance of working in the present day, given the consequences of retaliation, the fact that we are a net importer and our foreign debt position.
Well-being in the modern world is defined by our dependence on a multitude of physical products that must be made by first transforming raw materials — through smelting, refining, reacting, separating, and synthesising —into a wide variety of intermediate products, which are turned by further processing and final assembly into marketable items.
We must be proactive in propping up manufacturing by upping budgetary allocation to motivate establishments engaged in the mechanical, physical, or chemical transformation of materials, substances, or components into new products.
While the role played by government is central in manufacturing, our report card with regards to State-owned enterprises (SOEs) has been dismal. We must begin by changing our Company Act to provide for supervisory and management boards like in Germany.
This will serve to insulate our SOEs from pressure groups and politics. Additionally, we must recognise that in order to conquer the export market and scale, our local entrepreneurs must first develop competitiveness within our domestic and regional markets.
A rural industrialisation policy component should be aligned with our redistribution and decentralisation policy where there is interplay between the two levels of government.
There are no less than 50 different articles or brands sold in every well-stocked kiosk in the rural areas — anything from match boxes, detergents and personal care products.
We could have low-skill, low-capital, low-technology products manufactured at the ward level and medium-skill, medium-capital, medium-technology products at the constituency level. This will not only boost the rural economy by enhancing the degree of income equality, but it will also aid in deepening the fight against poverty.
As far as education goes, we must fill our young with the basic knowledge necessary to awaken their innate creative intelligence.
The introduction of appropriate skills at basic, technical, and vocational education will help in the indoctrination process. Primary education with the introduction of technical aspects will aid & accelerate industrialisation.
The OIN had apprenticeship schools and included School of Bridges and Roads, School of Mines, Royal Academy of Architecture, and Royal Military School. A technical school, Ecole d’arts et métiers, directly related to the manufacturing industry, was established in 1803 in Compiégne directly by Napoleon Bonaparte.
It covered areas such as technical drawing, mathematics, and textile-related curriculum.
Material science and engineering (MSE) is the study of materials, including their scientific fundamentals, design, and processing for real-world applications. It's an interdisciplinary field that draws on chemistry, physics, and engineering and Kenya must invest heavily in STEM.
Every year we are adding an additional 1m young are graduating from secondary school. Truism in KENYA is that we must grow our per capita GDP by at least 15 percent. But it bears repeating in a society where most minds are divorced from the fundamentals of making things. Let us begin today by unlearning and then learning.
