KEPSA received a Kshs 2.2 million boost from the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) to support Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in accessing affordable loan financing through the KEPSA revolving fund program. NSE became the second donor to the revolving fund which started with an initial amount of Kshs 5 million from Chandaria Foundation by Dr Manu Chandaria.

At the same time, KEPSA is inviting other corporates and foundations to donate to the fund. Through this initiative, more SMEs in this category will be funded. The KEPSA SME access to financing initiatives commenced in 2020 as a mitigation measure for shoring up the fortunes of small businesses in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, KEPSA, through a survey, established that micro-enterprises were the most affected with 64% reporting high or very high negative impact. Among other challenges, most SMEs were finding it difficult to access financing from formal lending institutions such as banks and micro-financers. This necessitated the organization to come up with initiatives to support the small businesses, one of which being the COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Programme in partnership with Mastercard Foundation through which KEPSA offered interest-free without collateral loans payable in six months.

Currently, KEPSA is in discussions with the Mastercard Foundation about the COVID-19 Recovery & Resilience Program, through which it supported 106 micro enterprises with Ksh 42 million, to turn it to a revolving fund for a period of 5 years. These are interest-free loans to help those that wouldn’t qualify for other funding from finance institutions.

The donation from NSE is part of the Kshs. 4.8 million raised during the 6^th annual NSE Charity Trading Day held in 2021. The NSE Charity Trading Day is an annual event that provides an opportunity for capital market players to come together in addressing socio-economic challenges as part of NSE’s implementation of Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs). The NSE donation will go to KEPSA and to other three beneficiary including SOS Children’s Village, Joy Children’s Centre and Borana Conservancy.

The cheque handover ceremony was held this morning at NSE and led by the NSE CEO Mr. Geoffrey Odundo and NSE Board Vice-Chairman Mr. Paul Mwai. Present at the event was KEPSA CEO Ms. Carole Kariuki; National Director of SOS Children’s Village Mr. Walter Odhiambo; Joy Children’s Centre Director Ms. Sarah Wanjiku; General Manager, Absa Securities Ltd Mr. Paul Nyaga; KEPSA Head of Projects Ms. Harrison Ngatia; Representatives from various sponsors among others.  The sponsors of the 2021 Charity Trading Day included British American Tobacco, Absa Bank Kenya, Safaricom, Capital Markets Authority, KenGen, Xetova, East Africa Breweries, Magnolia Event Planners, Homeboyz, Fronlite Media, SBG Securities- Part of the Stanbic Bank Group, Rupa’s Gift Centre and Gastronome Ltd.

In his remarks, NSE CEO Mr. Geoffrey Odundo noted that the Charity Trading Day is part of NSE’s larger sustainability agenda and is firmly aligned with the core business strategy that extends the organization’s commitment to continue improving the impact on communities in Kenya. The NSE focus in 2021 was on supporting SMEs to withstand the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mr. Odundo appreciated the sponsors of the 2021 Charity Trading Day.

Speaking during the ceremony, KEPSA CEO Ms. Carole Kariuki noted that SMEs were part of the current focus area of KEPSA that is geared towards supporting SMEs in the following areas:

1. Laws and policies: – By ensuring a conducive policy environment right from KEPSA’s involvement in the development of the MSE Bill that was enacted in 2012, to the development of first Africa’s SME Policy Index to assess how to facilitate Kenyan policies for SME development. She also noted that KEPSA is pursuing the development of a National Tax Policy, County Government’s Revenue Raising Process Bill to reduce multiplicity of fees, charges and levies in counties as well as regulatory impact assessment as a practice in policymaking to help determine implementation impacts of new policies and regulations on SMEs. In addition, Some of the issues KEPSA pursued as part of our Economic Management Framework for Covid-19 Response include tax reductions to ease financial strain, facilitating flow of goods and services during curfew and lock-down, championing the reopening of the economy for continuity, easing credit access and lobbying banks to set-up SME dedicated funding at affordable rates, restructuring loans for struggling businesses, expediting payment of pending bills and VAT refunds as well as adoption of prompt payment policy at national level, counties and private sector.

1. Access to finance: – “We always have to appreciate our small businesses and assist them to grow. In so doing, we started the Covid-19 Recovery & Resilience Program in partnership with Mastercard Foundation, aimed at supporting SMEs with interest-free loans of up to 1.5 million repayable within six months. The loans were all issued between December 2020 and May 2021,” Said Ms. Kariuki.

1. Capacity Building: – In the period, KEPSA also facilitated 25 virtual training and mentorship sessions covering topics such as marketing, e-commerce, business finance including grants financing, financial management, entrepreneurship, and customer relationship management. The trainings that also included peer to peer mentorship sessions were conducted by industry leaders and mentors from various specializations and sectors and were attended by over 9,000 participants. Another 1,019 learners underwent a 3-month digital skills training, a pilot project conducted in partnership with Zydii, focused on the free transfer of business skills for SMEs. Further, another 54 SMEs successfully went through a 3-month Access to Finance Business Coaching for investment-ready SMEs on developing business plans, financial performance summaries, financial projections, and making investor pitch decks. The coaching program also included linkages to commercial and non-commercial investors whereby 13 select businesses got a chance to pitch to investors over two days. Nine have since gone on to matchmaking engagements with the investors with one of the beneficiaries successfully receiving a USD 5,000 investment in her business. Through the KEPSA E-commerce Booster Program, 2545 SMEs were trained on e-commerce, digital marketing and given support in on-boarding them onto various digital platforms to help increase and diversify their revenue streams during the pandemic. The program was supported by TradeMark East Africa (TMEA) with funding from EU and Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO). 

1. Access to markets: – KEPSA has partnered with Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) through the U.S.-Kenya SME Trade initiative which aims to provide a unique platform to facilitate Kenyan SMES, especially women and youth led entrepreneurs to address the current challenges many face to access the U.S market. Further, KEPSA established an annual supplier diversity summit which seeks to sensitize, influence organizations to adopt gender-inclusive supply chain and link women/Youth led/owned SMES to emerging opportunities.

The KEPSA CEO also mentioned that KEPSA is at the forefront of championing the implementation Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the Global UN Global Compact. She added that KEPSA has continued to encourage its members to make sure that they implement the SDGs and was excited to see NSE taking up the initiative to implement some of SDGs.

The lead beneficiary of the funds is KEPSA and the funds will be channelled towards a revolving fund that looks at scaling SMEs COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience in a more sustainable manner by supporting women and youth enterprises with high potential for growth in high demand sectors. Other beneficiaries; SOS Children’s Village, Joy Children’s Home as well as Borana Conservancy will each receive a total of Kshs. 500,000.

The National Director of SOS Children’s Village Mr. Walter Odhiambo noted that the organization recognizes the fact that children need a family where they can grow up and receive all they need to flourish. He thanked NSE for the support saying that this will boost the organization while committing to providing proper accountability for the funds.

The Joy Children’s Centre, which is a home that provides an ideal family setting ensuring that all children feel loved, appreciated the donation through the Director Ms. Sarah Wanjiku and Ms. Naomi Atieno. Through the NSE support, the institution has been able to run various projects including the construction of a dormitory, borehole, paying for academic fees and taking care of the abandoned children during the pandemic.