Author: Nairobi Business Monthly Reporter

Africa’s property landscape is still in its infancy. It has immense opportunities to leverage the pandemic lessons as a springboard for the type of future-focused property development that could very well position the continent as a global property leader BY GERHARD ZEELIE An understandable response to the economic fallout of Covid-19 is for governments, industries and businesses trying to predict the path that the global economy will take in the coming months and years. However, given that this is a challenging exercise at best, it’s probably a better investment of valuable time and effort to ponder the many lessons –…

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The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the potential vulnerability of the world’s food supply chains. This is galvanising governments in emerging economies to boost domestic production through new agricultural inputs and investment in agri-tech and logistics networks The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) has warned that 265m people globally could face acute food insecurity by the end of the year – double the figure before the pandemic. This dramatic spike is based on a number of factors. For example, the lockdown measures have led to severe labour shortages in key agricultural areas, meaning that many crops were simply left to rot…

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Improved registries streamline nation-wide reforms that help climb the ranks in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing business index – an international standard to measure a country’s appeal for foreign investment An effective business registration system plays a crucial role in economic well-being and its advancement, especially in emerging economies. However, it also needs a strong leadership backbone behind it to drive the process forward. Full leadership support and full-fledged business registrars are the key factors that help a country climb the Ease of Doing Business rankings, which enables it to attract more foreign capital, thus accelerating its economic growth. In…

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A significant amount of government spending has gone towards development projects whose expected economic return might not be able to finance the cost of financing Kenya’s Public Debt has been on the rise in the recent years as a result of the Government’s ambitious development agenda evident in the country’s budgets over the last ten years. A number of rating agencies have in the near past relooked at the country’s sovereign credit outlook and changed them to a more negative one. In May, Moody’s Credit Agency, for instance released changed Kenya’s sovereign credit outlook to negative, from a previous outlook of…

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The airline industry faces its gravest crisis. Within a matter of a few weeks, our previous worst-case scenario is looking better than our latest estimates. Without immediate government relief measures, there will not be an industry left standing BY GILBERT NG’ANG’A The past three years have certainly been a bloodbath for Kenya Airways, or KQ as the national airline is known by its international code. And possibly, the coming few months to the end of 2020 hold the biggest sway on whether the airline will stay in the skies in the future. Like other airlines globally, the Covid-19 pandemic has…

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Think globally, pick your fights and file early BY VICTOR MWAGO AND JORDAN URSTADT Entrepreneurs are usually short on time or money, or both. What’s the best strategy for an entrepreneur to pursue a patent? As technology entrepreneurs from Kenya and Switzerland, we pooled our experiences and came up with three pieces of business advice for entrepreneurs. We hope it will help entrepreneurs pursuing a patent. Think global Getting a patent in Kenya may safeguard intellectual property in Kenya, but it doesn’t help scale your business against global competition. For industries like software (where we work), the market is global.…

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African leadership must deliberately choose to rethink and strengthen health governance, promotion of regional integration, and broadening partnerships for health as important now more than ever before in the context of the Africa Health Strategy BY DRS OLAJIDE ADEMOLA AND BENJAMIN DJOUDALBAYE The COVID -19 pandemic has drastically challenged and strained health systems worldwide. All components of the health delivery architecture – from human resources to physical infrastructure – have been severely tested as morbidity and mortality caseloads unfortunately gallop. Globally, close to seven million people have been infected, with about 401, 000 lives lost. As the pandemic continues to…

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What is on record is an organisation that remained silent, even in the glaring presence of massive colonial government excesses against a majority of the country’s population BY GILBERT MUYUMBU The establishment of the modern state in Kenya on June 1, 1886 was not a process that followed any universally accepted rule of law. It was a foreign imposition on the African populations, which then lived in a space that would later be referred to as Kenya. As a foreign imposition, it lacked legitimacy among a majority of Africans and thus faced stiff resistance from many of them. In order…

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Continent’s own domestic travel market will be at the forefront driving recovery of the sector post COVID-19, and it’s up to the leisure and business accommodation industry to get behind what these markets will demand BY MARK HAVERCROFT Two years ago, a PwC report identified the importance of local markets for the African travel sector, and the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic make these more relevant than ever. In its PwC Hotels outlook: 2018-2022 Positioning for future growth, the company predicted the steady growth of the domestic tourism market across the continent, noting the principal role this market plays in…

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BY TIMOTHY KIAMBATI There is a silent but agonizing cry by private school teachers across the nation. Since the abrupt closure of schools early March that was occasioned by the Coronavirus, private school teachers have been going without salaries. This is despite the fact that they already had pending bills to settle especially in terms of house rents as well as meet their normal daily needs. The covid-19 global pandemic has exposed the underbelly of private school proprietors. Most private school teachers are on indefinite unpaid leave. One can only imagine the damaging effects of this uncertainty. What these teachers are…

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