On 12^th October 2022, KEPSA CEO Ms Carole Kariuki held a meeting with the Managing Director of Dow Chemical East Africa Mr Leonard Kareko at the KEPSA offices. The meeting discussed among other things, partnership opportunities in climate change and sustainability.

Mr Kareko was accompanied by Ms Zanele Xaba - Government Affairs Lead and Ms Mumbi Keega - Public Affairs Africa. Also present during the meeting was Mr Ebenezer Amadi - Project Manager, Sustainable Inclusive Business at KEPSA, Ms Faith Ngige – Public-Private Dialogue (PPD) Officer and Ms Stacey Mwende - Membership and Marketing Assistant.

The KEPSA CEO highlighted the importance of members identifying partnership opportunities with KEPSA and thinking global. She also noted the importance of companies on the socio-economic aspect of businesses. Through its socio-economic arm of KEPSA Foundation, KEPSA has been implementing various programmes and projects. In this regard, there is an opportunity to collaborate with corporates on circularity and integration of sustainability within their strategies.

Dow Chemical leader noted that food security, circularity in plastics and partnerships to upscale innovations are part of Dow Chemical's strategic focus. The organization through its citizen fund see an opportunity in the Pamoja Tuungane initiative where KEPSA is mobilizing the private sector to contribute towards addressing the drought crisis.

The meeting was informed that Kenya Plastic Pact (KPP) has played a major role in making sure that sector actors and in particular the brands work towards addressing plastic pollution. KEPSA, on the other hand, has been working closely with the government and other partners to support the sustainability agenda.

The meeting also discussed how tariffs are being affected as there is no distinction between finished products and intermediary products as the government is using finished products tariffs making it very hard to compete in the market. These are some of the issues that KEPSA is addressing through its advocacy agenda in the sector board groups and the continued PPD engagements.

It emerged that the private sector can get more involved through implementation and joining the PPD's ongoing projects and pioneering new ones.