Co-operative University College 1st Business Conference

The Co-operative University College of Kenya, a constituent college of JKUAT, held its 1^st annual conference of Co-operative Business at their premises in Karen.

The conference bared the theme ‘entrepreneurship and technology for sustainable socio-economic development’ and saw over 200 people from the agribusiness and educational sectors alone. It was aimed to provide a forum for interdisciplinary interactions among academia, researchers, policymakers, government officials, and business leaders to exchange ideas with a view of finding suitable solutions to some of the challenges facing the society, private and public organizations.

Bringing together key cooperatives and their members from across the various sectors to discuss topics including innovation and technology; governance and development; finance, banking and risk management; co-operative development and management; food security and social policy; value chain management; and business management and entrepreneurship, this conference also served as a powerful networking opportunity.

In line with vision 2030, Kenya’s development blueprint also envisaged the financial services sector being transformed into a vibrant and globally competitive sector that will drive high levels of savings to finance the country’s investment needs. The main aims are to raise savings and investment rates from 14 percent to 30 percent of GDP, increase bank deposits from 44 percent to 80 percent of GDP, and reduce the share of the population without access to finance from 85 percent to below 70 percent.

“The Co-operative Bank of Kenya considers the financial sector goals of vision 2030, namely, financial deepening, accessibility, affordability, and stability of the financial sector as consistent with our business strategy”, said Mr. William Ndumia, the director of the transformation at the Co-operative Bank of Kenya. He added, “the bank will, therefore, sustain its partnership with the co-operative movement to deliver inclusive growth for Kenya.”

The 3-day conference hosted a lot of key members in its opening day including the Cabinet Secretary for Industrialization and Enterprise Development, Adan Mohamed, and is expected to attract a lot more interest post-conference.