The Kenyan Informal Sector

The Kenyan economy, as it currently stands, cannot provide jobs for the entire population, but thanks to the informal sector many people who would have otherwise languished at home without employment, can now get a livelihood and build the economy.

The Kenyan informal sector has largely been ignored but the fact still remains that without the informal sector in this country, the economy wouldn’t be what it is today.

The 6^th Global Entrepreneurship Summit that is to be held in Nairobi will expose this sector to the world and highlight its role in creating employment and sustaining the economy, to augment the SME sector and promote the entrepreneurship culture in Kenya.

The Global Entrepreneurship Summit will empower SMEs as well as small entrepreneurs in the informal sector in Kenya with the capacity to expand.

The informal sector in Kenya constitutes close to 98 percent of all existing businesses in the country, and it is estimated that this informal sector absorbs up to 50 percent of all the new non-employment seekers and in the process leading to an employment growth rate of 12-14 percent.

The Global Entrepreneurship Summit will, therefore, unearth the enormous potential in this sector. There is no doubt that the informal sector in Kenya is an ocean of opportunities that are mostly untapped and only waiting for those keen on exploiting it.

Employment is one of the key opportunities in this sector as this is the only sector in the country that employs people with no marketable skills and a weak educational background.

Investment opportunity is another untapped opportunity that this crucial sector offers and only awaits people to venture into it.

These opportunities in the informal sector in Kenya can be made formal, thanks to this year’s Global Entrepreneurship Summit to be held in Kenya. However, this can only be achieved through:-

1. Exposing the enormous potential in this sector to the world during the Global Entrepreneurship Summit.
2. Bringing out the best we can showcase from this sector for the whole world to see.
3. Convince the world through this event that the informal sector in this country is a force to reckon with and if only it is fully supported, then Kenya as well as the whole world will benefit from its products.