The Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) held its 18^th Annual General Meeting (AGM) on 9^th June 2022. This year’s AGM marked the culmination of five years of the Simba Era Strategy (2018-2032), which commenced with the development of the third National Business Agenda (NBA 3, 2018-2022). Through the NBA 3, KEPSA had set ambitious agenda of repositioning KEPSA to be delivery-driven, results-oriented and taking a lead role in the socio-economic transformation of the country by working together through strengthened partnerships with government and other stakeholders.

While highlighting KEPSA’s achievements, the KEPSA CEO, Ms Carole Kariuki focused on public-private dialogues (PPDs) and engagements, partnerships and MOUs initiated, the support KEPSA has provided to businesses to wade through the negative impacts of Covid-19, key achievements for different sectors and thematic focus areas, and the activities of the KEPSA Foundation of the last one year.

On PPDs and Engagement, the CEO noted that the organization continued to engage the government over the last year mainly virtually due to the constrained nature of the physical meeting. KEPSA held one Presidential Roundtable (PRT) in May 2022 which focused on a national tree campaign towards a target of 2 billion trees. KEPSA had an eventful year as it engaged the Presidential Policy and Strategy Unit. The Alliance held 22 Ministerial Stakeholders Forums (MSFs) as well as several engagements with the various agencies and departments.

Ms Kariuki reported that KEPSA continued its engagement with the Parliament having had the Senate Speaker’s Roundtable while also holding the National Assembly engagement through chairs of different Departmental Committees convened twice by the Leader of Government Business in the House. KEPSA also met with different committees of both houses through the different sector boards.

KEPSA also continued its engagement with the Judiciary through the Chief Justice Roundtable. KEPSA leaders made a courtesy call to the then newly appointed Chief Justice and later held two Chief Justice Roundtables focused on addressing matters pertaining to the expeditious conclusion of legacy cases, economic litigations and improvements on the judicial system.

KEPSA engagements transcended into EAC with its double role as the National Focal Point for the East African Business Council (EABC). KEPSA hosted the EAC Secretary General CEOs roundtable together with EABC and resolved that the EAC Secretariat would partner with KEPSA to re-assess the EAC decision-making process and accelerate the implementation mechanism of the decisions and key resolutions undertaken among the Partner States at the Summit and Council of Ministers.

Over the last year, KEPSA supported businesses through the Covid-19 pandemic by implementing an E-commerce Booster Program. This built the capacity of over 2,600 SMEs to engage in e-commerce and leverage the digital ecosystem to enhance growth and resilience. KEPSA further rolled out SME Covid-19 Recovery and Resilience Programme to support women and youth-owned businesses that had been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic benefitting 106 businesses.

Some of the KEPSA achievements included;

1. The establishment of an SME Club to drive the agenda of SMEs more closely even though KEPSA long advocated for reforms in the business operating environment for SMEs since KEPSA was established.
2. Development of a draft National Economic Diplomacy Strategy to inform our strategies to spur exports markets development and foreign direct investments
3. Targeted training for SMEs, traders and truck drivers to ensure cross-border trade continues during the Covid-19 period
4. Training the private sector on Value Chain Prioritization and Analytics on Coffee, Beef and Aquaculture value chains has helped the Ministry of Agriculture.

In the social arm of the organisation, through the Ajira Digital Program for youth development, KEPSA Foundation had 1,204 young people who benefitted from the e-government workstream working as transcribers as well as data entry and scanning agents. Under Mkenya Daima Initiative, the KEPSA Foundation held a media launch earlier in the year to propel the campaign into the public space and create awareness. In the course of the year, a Private Sector Economic Manifesto was developed, which has been used to engage with Presidential candidates to influence political manifestos to be economic-centred.

In her remarks, KEPSA Chairperson, Ms Flora Mutahi noted that Kenya continued to reel out from potential adverse health and economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic due to early measures that the government and the business community, implemented to balance health, economic and social needs of the county. She informed the meeting that while over 1 million jobs were lost, 5 million potential job losses were saved by the measures. “While the Covid-19 challenges cannot be understated, KEPSA firmly believe that Kenyan business must take pragmatic actions to ensure near-term business continuity and a stronger rebound.” She said.

Ms Mutahi pointed out that the first half of 2021 is when businesses bore the brunt of the pandemic while adding that the economy was already on its path to recovery past mid-year and the lifting of the curfew in August 2021 was a big boost to the recovery agenda. She noted that the start of 2022 was a bit better and even though the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) improved to 48.2 in May 2022, it’s still below the 50 mark, indicating reduced private sector activities.

The KEPSA Chair observed that despite the positive projections on the economy while acknowledging the unprecedented risks that the Kenyan economy could be exposed to during an election year. This, she said, is demonstrated by data available on the past elections since 2002. She, however, encouraged the private sector and the Kenyans, in general, to be proactive to try and mitigate the risk through encouraging responsible exercising of democratic rights during the election period.

The Chairperson concluded by stating that KEPSA looks forward to continue engaging its members more on the building back a better agenda to ensure high-impact reforms for accelerated growth and development of the private sector that will be possible through the envisaged fourth National Business Agenda (NBA-4) that would be a framework of the organization’s priorities.

During the AGM, the KEPSA CEO launched the KEPSA COVID-19 Initiative 2021-2022 Report. This report outlines KEPSA’s initiatives, their impact within the unique context of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the challenges and lessons learned.